


At Home in the Uncanny Valley

by ionthesparrow



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Alternate Universe - Robots & Androids, Florida Panthers, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-20
Updated: 2016-02-20
Packaged: 2018-05-22 05:41:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 35,980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6067245
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ionthesparrow/pseuds/ionthesparrow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is the story of how you came to be. This is the story of how you made yourself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Nick, Part 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much to Dark_Eyed_Junco for looking over early drafts of this. To pressdbtwnpages for stepping in at the end. To bestliars for all of her thoughtful comments. And to thehandsoftime for encouraging this project from beginning to end, even when I kept making it worse. 
> 
> Thank you all for helping me with this weird, messy project. I never listen to any of you as often as I should, all remaining mistakes are mine. 
> 
>  
> 
> **Content Warnings**
> 
>  
> 
> * To be perfectly honest, I still haven't quite figured out what or how exactly I want to want to warn for this story. I think I'll put a couple things up here, and maybe a more spoilery version of the warnings at the end? 
> 
> * A character in this story spends a lot of time struggling with his parents' infidelity and subsequent divorce  
> * A character in this story thinks and feels differently from most, and struggles with feelings of wanting to be "normal"
> 
> * as always, if after reading, you feel the Content Warning should be altered, I would appreciate it if you let me know, either in comments, or via email (ionthesparrow12 at gmail).
> 
> Finally - I played super fast and loose with timelines, geography, and technology. Sorry to those who this will offend :)

* * *

 

> ` If you asked Nick Bjugstad, he would say the story starts here: `

The boy on the ice is thin. 

The boy on the ice is standing at the gate – just a step beyond where the rubber mat runway hits the ice. He holds his arms out in front of him, braced against the air. 

The kids that attend the camps Nick’s father and his Uncle Scott run are all better skaters than this. Like Nick, most of them have been in skates since they were upright. In Minnesota, that’s nothing to marvel at; that’s closer to the rule than the exception. But that doesn’t mean Nick doesn’t recognize the posture of someone taking their first steps on the ice. 

Nick looks back in the opposite direction, towards the rink office. Through the window, he can see his father still arguing. He can’t hear him, but he can see his red face, his lips curled back, a pointed finger slashing through the air. 

Nick’s father had rented ice; they were supposed to practice this morning, but when they arrived, there was a group of girls already out there, pony tails swinging as they dashed red line to red line. 

The other sheet had been allotted to a public skate. 

A mistake, the manager said. A scheduling error. 

Now his father’s going off, and there’s nothing to do but wait for him to be done. Nick looks away. He pulls at the laces the of his skates. Even though he’s tired, he’s glad it’s early. Glad this half of the rink is almost empty, and glad his father didn’t decide to just yell at the girls on the ice instead. Nick thinks maybe he should go over there and say something, but he can’t. He already has his skates on. He’s trapped on this island made of rubber matting. 

Maybe that’s better, anyway. 

Nick shifts his weight: heel, toe. Heel, toe. The Fogerty rink smells like stale popcorn and old sweat. Familiar in a way that used to be comforting, but now just makes his nose itch. Nick fixes his eyes on the line of windows that run along the wall, high, almost where it meets the roof. He looks at the light slanting in. 

If his skates were rocket shoes he could blast straight up from here, Iron Man style, and he imagines the tinkling sound the falling glass would make as he blew through, on his way to somewhere else. He imagines the sudden rush of warm air, the momentarily blinding light of the sun and the way the whole rink complex would shrink in seconds until it was just a dot beneath him. Just for effect, Nick imagines explosions. 

Nothing explodes. 

Nick scratches his nose with the back of his hand. No spray of glass. No sudden flares. Just the steady hum of fluorescent, and a distant whistle, and the old, tired smells of rubber and grease and ice. He looks back out at the public skate sheet. There’s just a couple kids in the far corner, messing around, and a girl doing spins at the center. And the boy at the gate. 

The boy wavers. 

Nick leaves his stick and his gloves on the bench. He takes a quick step, and the ice receives him, easy as it always does. He slides a quick half circle, so he can face him, and the boy is older than Nick thought he was. Maybe Nick’s age, just skinny. And small. “Have you ever skated before?” Nick asks. 

The boy glances up. He frowns at Nick, eyebrows drawing together. “No. But I have a very thorough understanding of how it’s supposed to work.” 

He sounds very sure of himself, even irritated, as though Nick has interrupted something important. Nick says, “Okay, well. Do you want any help?” 

“No,” the boy says, voice firm. And then he falls. 

“Whoa, easy.” Nick reaches for him, gives him a hand up. The sleeves of the boy’s shirt fall down over his hands, but his grip is strong, each of his hands tight around one of Nick’s wrists. “Bend your knees a little more. Chest up.” Nick lets himself drift backwards, just a bit. “Weight over onto your left leg, and then you push off – ” 

“I know what I’m supposed to do.” He still sounds irritated, but he doesn’t let go of Nick’s wrists. After a moment, he pushes off, drifting towards Nick. 

Nick smiles. “Good.” 

The boy does it again, this time with the other leg. He’s shaky, but he doesn’t fall. “The ice isn’t as even as I was expecting,” he admits. 

Nick takes another stride backward. “No?” 

“No.” 

“I like the rink over in Shoreview better, but the ice here is okay. Better than Schwan’s or Deacon Park, for sure.” 

The boy looks up. “You know about the ice in all those places?” 

Nick shrugs. “Sure. I’ve skated at just about every place within fifty miles that you can rent ice at. We – ” He glances back towards the office, but there’s no sign his dad’s done yelling. “Gotta get your practice time in,” he finishes. 

The boy catches his lip between his teeth. “Can I ask you questions about it? That’ll be faster than going to all those places.” 

He sounds so serious. Nick laughs. “About the ice? Sure.” 

The boy blinks at him without smiling. He pauses. “Was that a weird question? Am I being weird?” 

Behind him, Nick can hear the sounds of the kids in the corner laughing – they’re probably the younger siblings of the girls on the next sheet. And beyond them, Nick can hear the rattle and thud of that practice, and it should be loud but it feels a million miles away. 

The boy looks just at him, like Nick is the only thing in the whole world. His fingers are still curled around Nick’s wrists, and Nick can feel the warmth of their press. “You can ask me questions,” Nick says. “You can even ask me weird questions.” He offers a small smile. 

The boy’s mouth hesitates, and then he smiles back. “Thank you,” he says. He looks down at their hands. “Can I try on my own?” 

It takes Nick half a beat to realize his own fingers are holding just as tight to the boy’s wrists as the boy is holding onto Nick. Nick makes himself let go. “Of course.” 

The boy takes one wobbling stride, and then another. His next is better, and Nick can see him testing: a short stride then a longer one. Left and then right. His weight forward then back. He traces an unsteady half-circle around Nick. 

“That’s good,” Nick says. “You’re getting it really fast.” 

But the boy shakes his head. “I’m not strong enough,” he says. “I know what I’m supposed to do – ” his hand illustrates clean, flowing lines through the air, “ – but I’m not strong enough or fast enough.” 

Nick would laugh, but he sounds so serious again. “It’s your first time out. You’ll get there. It just takes practice. Muscle. And muscle memory.” He sounds just like his dad. Nick glances back toward the office. 

“I have to get good enough to make the Eden Prairie hockey team,” the boy says. “This fall.” 

His tone makes it sound like a perfectly reasonable plan. Like there’s nothing crazy at all about the idea of learning to skate in June and making a hockey team in September. “I have to get good enough to make the team,” he repeats, quieter. “So I can help them get better. That’s the whole point.” 

Nick stares. 

The boy nods once, firm. Like that’s the whole of the explanation, and nothing more needs to be said. 

It’s totally crazy. But there’s no doubt in the boy’s voice. And what the hell, Nick thinks, maybe he can. Maybe he will. “I bet you can do it.” 

After a beat, the boy grins. 

“Nick!” 

Nick’s dad is waving him over. “My dad,” Nick explains. “I gotta go.” 

The boy just nods. “Thank you,” he says again. “For helping me. And for answering my questions.” 

Nick’s father has one hand pressed to his forehead, like the world is already giving him a headache. “The idiot in the office fucked up, so look, we’re just going to have to do dry land training today.” 

“But we’re already here.” Nick looks behind him, and he can still see the boy, making steady, slow loops around the ice. “It’s mostly empty. We could stay. You said – ” 

“We’ve already wasted half the morning, I don’t have time to argue.” He shoots Nick a look. 

Nick lets it drop. 

 

 

Nick watches the rink grow smaller behind them. Not with the sudden trajectory of a rocket, but rather with the gradual stop and go of traffic, and captured in the passenger side mirror of his dad’s truck. Watching the building grow smaller, Nick says, “That kid – ” 

His dad, signaling to change lanes, frowns without looking at him. “What kid?” 

“The one I was skating with?” Nick keeps his eyes on the mirror, until the rink slips fully out of view, and then he slouches down in his seat instead. “He’s just learning how to skate, but I guess he wants to make the team in Eden Prairie this fall.” 

Nick’s father has both his hands on the wheel, and both his eyes on the road. “Nick, one of the things about being talented is, you’re going to have to learn to deal with people who have unrealistic expectations.” He pauses, hands curving over the steering wheel. “A lot of people think they’ve got what it takes. That doesn’t mean they do.” 

They hit the main road, and the view out the window becomes a rush of green. The trees are putting out new leaves, still a bright yellow-green. It was a late spring this year, and the grass medians are still mostly mud. New shoots just starting to uncurl and push for the sky. 

Spring again, Nick thinks. Everything laid out fresh and new, green and hopeful. It’s going to be warm again. With long hours of sunlight, and clear nights filled with the hum of mosquitoes and the croak of frogs. 

It’s going to be spring again, regardless of everything else that’s happening. And Nick can feel it under his skin. A restless itch. A buzzing in his blood, like he could explode right up and out of his own body. 

Nick looks at his dad, and he thinks about saying: _Well. If anyone would know about not having what it takes, I guess it would be you._

The words are right there, right at the tip of his tongue, and his skin feels tight, and the feeling is right there, sitting hard and heavy in his chest. He thinks they’d finally start yelling. He thinks if they started, they might never stop. 

Nick rests his head against the glass and closes his eyes. “I guess.” 

“Good to have goals, though.” His dad reaches out to shake Nick’s shoulder. “You gotta respect that.” 

Nick keeps his eyes closed. “Yeah.” 

“That’s important, Nick.” 

With his eyes closed, he could be anywhere. He could be far away from this car and a million miles from the nearest hockey rink. The hum of the road is white noise just anonymous enough to make it a believable illusion. He could be – 

His dad shakes his shoulder again. “You’re not falling asleep on me, are you? It wouldn’t hurt for you to spend a little more time thinking about setting some goals of your own. We could put’em in a notebook or something. Some kind of chart.” 

Nick opens his eyes and looks at him. This used to be a place he escaped to instead of from. This car used to hold loud, vibrant conversations. The two of them going back and forth about how a play should have gone, what a call should have been, how to change the game for next time. But now there is only this strained quiet, and all Nick’s words sit like a stone in his throat. He doesn’t name any goals; he fixes his eyes back out the window, and he stays quiet, but he thinks very loudly: _get away from here._

> ` (By now it should be clear that _this_ boy is on thin ice, yes? You saw that, even when you didn’t know what it meant. Even when he didn’t see it. But this is his part of the story, and you should let him tell it.) `

Nick wakes to his mother’s soft knock on the bedroom door. “Nicky,” she says. “Time to get up.” 

He was dreaming. Of what, he can’t remember, but it had felt nice, felt like something he wanted to hold onto. Nick is tired. His bed is warm. 

Nick pushes the covers back. He sits up and rubs his face. From here, he can see the row of trophies on his bookshelf, spilling over and fighting with the textbooks for desk space. If he got rid of them, he’d have so much more shelf space. For what, he’s not sure. His thoughts run together, unordered and nonsensical. __

His bed is so warm. Nick is so tired. 

He gets up anyways. The least he can do is be ready in time to wait outside, so she doesn’t have to see him. 

The kitchen is dim. She’s only turned on the fluorescent over the stove, and the light coming through the window is still thin and fragile. He eats the eggs she sets in front of him, giving them his undivided attention to get it all down as fast as possible. She puts a thermos of hot chocolate and two breakfast bars on the table next to his plate. When he stands, she brings his face down to hers so she can kiss his cheek, and her fingertips are cool on his skin. Her hair is falling out of where she has it tied back, and she tucks it behind her ear. Her movements have a slow, conscious steadiness, like she knows how he breaks every time he sees her hands tremble. “Do your best. Have fun. Be good,” she says, and goes back upstairs. 

When she is gone, he checks the trash next to the kitchen table to see if it’s full of tissues. 

It’s not. Maybe that’s a good sign. 

He waits for his father sitting on the front steps, and he’s up even before his dad’s truck has fully turned into the driveway. He throws his bag into the back and he’s in the passenger seat before his dad has a chance to turn off the engine. Nick pulls his seatbelt on, like that might hurry things along. 

But his father idles in the drive instead. His hand rests on the key in the ignition, a half-finished thought. He’s not looking at Nick; he’s looking at the house. “How’s your mother?” 

“She’s fine,” Nick says. 

He doesn’t add, _she didn’t cry last night_. 

He doesn’t say, _please don’t ask to come inside_. 

The truck continues its low idle, and his father continues to watch the house, Nick long forgotten, and Nick can see the line of his father’s throat work, his Adam’s apple bob as he swallows, loud in the silence. He looks over and blinks, like he’s just remembered Nick’s still there. He pats Nick’s knee. “I know this is hard,” he says. “But this is just temporary. I’ll be back home with you guys before long. Okay? You don’t need to worry.” 

Calling his dad a liar would just start a fight, so Nick looks out the window. But what his thinks is: _yeah fucking right_. 

 

 

His mother mutes the TV when he gets home, calls out, “How was your game?” as he walks through the door. 

The living room is dark, lit just by the flicker of the TV. Nick ditches his bag and flips the lights on. “Good – we won.” He drops down next to her on the couch. 

“Is that it?” She asks. “Tell me how it went. How’d you play?” 

Nick takes his time answering because it’s just summer league, which means teams are a weird mish-mash of whoever can be bothered to show up, and half the time they end up reffing themselves. And also because he’s been talking about hockey in one form or another for the last twelve hours straight. He shrugs. “It’s just summer league.” In response to her exasperated expression, he adds, “I had a goal?” 

“That’s good. From who?” 

“Smitty.” 

“Smitty, of course.” She smiles at him. “That’s good, right? The two of you getting some practice so you can start well this fall?” 

“I guess.” Nick twists his face up. He’s not ready to think about this fall. “It’s just summer league. It doesn’t count for anything.” He leans forward to examine a pile of brochures on the coffee table in front of them. “What are these?” He picks one up. _Anoka Community College._

“Oh. I was just – ” Her hands sweep them into a pile. “Looking into some options. I thought I could maybe go back to school.” 

Nick looks at her, at her face, half lit by the lamp. “What would you go to school for?” 

She doesn’t answer for a moment, and then she laughs, embarrassed. “I don’t even know. Stupid, I guess, to think about going back to school when I don’t even know what I’d study.” She presses her hand to her mouth. “I was just – I was driving past and I thought, wouldn’t it be funny if both us were in school at the same time. I don’t know why I even stopped.” 

Nick’s chest hurts. “You’d be good at it. Whatever you picked, you’d be good at it.” 

She smiles at him, soft and small, with her hand still held up close to her face. 

Nick is so very tired. So tired he aches. Nick drops her gaze. 

“Anyway,” she says. “I’m glad your game went well.” 

“It’s just summer league,” Nick keeps his eyes down. It doesn’t really matter. It’s just another way to log ice time. Another way to keep grinding. Day in, day out. Can’t stop. Gotta keep working. Really, only one thing happened tonight that really mattered, and Nick’s sitting on it. Nick’s not saying it. 

But even after she unmutes the TV, even with sounds and the flickering light filling the room again, he can feel the words pushing up and out, trying to escape. Nick keeps his eyes on the screen when he finally says, “Mike said he talked to the coach at the U again.” 

Out of the corner of his eye, he can see her turn towards him. Can feel the look she fixes him with. “Nick.” 

Nick watches the TV with resolute, feigned interest. “What?” 

“He’s still your father.” 

Nick shrugs. He shifts, pushes his feet under the edge of the throw blanket she has folded across her lap. “Anyway. He said the Minnesota coach still thinks it’s a good idea. For me to start there in 2010 instead of 2011.” 

She was spreading the blanket to cover his legs, but her hands pause. “And what do you think about that?” 

There’s no good answer here. Leaving early would mean one less year of his dad driving him to games. But leaving early would also make her sad. 

She’s still watching him when his phone starts to buzz in his pocket. Nick digs it out. He doesn’t recognize the number. 

Her eyes stay locked on his face the whole time. 

“I have to take this,” Nick tells her. “It’s important.” 

She watches him a beat longer, just long enough to let him know she hears the lie. She pats his leg before rising. “Don’t stay up too late, okay?” 

Nick watches her head upstairs. He hits the button on his phone. 

The voice on the other side says, “hi. I was wondering if you could help me with other hockey things – not just skating?” 

Nick pulls the phone away from his ear, checks the number again, and studies it like it might hold clues before drawing the phone close again. “Who is this?” He sits up. “Is this the kid from Fogerty’s?” 

“Yes. I was – ” 

“Wait.” Nick shakes his head. “How did you get my number?” 

“I told Leds – Nick Leddy, I mean – that I went to the Fogerty arena because they had a free skate, and that someone at the free skate helped me learn to skate. And he said, who the hell is at a public skate at eight a.m. on a Saturday? And I said, I didn’t know your name, but that you were very tall and there with your dad. And he said, if he was very tall and at the rink at eight a.m. on a Saturday with his dad, then that was Nick Bjugstad, and then he gave me your phone number. It is you, right? You’re Nick Bjugstad, and you’re the one who helped me skate on Saturday and said I could ask you questions?” 

Nick blinks. “Yes?” 

“Okay, well I need to know how to shoot the puck.” 

“Naturally,” Nick agrees. 

“Right. So how exactly – ” 

“Hold up,” Nick says. “If you know Nick Leddy – ” 

“He’s my friend – ” 

> ` (You remember the very first time asking, “What should I call you?” You remember the answer, “Call me Leds.” And then saying, “And if people ask – what then?” And he said, “Friends. We’re friends, and that’s what you can tell them.” You remember turning that word over and over in your mouth, and the feeling it made in your chest.) `

“ – Okay, if you’re friends with Nick Leddy, and you’re trying to make the Eden Prairie team, shouldn’t you be asking him for help?” Nick Leddy has run the show over in Eden Prairie for the last three years. Leddy’s the one who elevated Eden Prairie to Hated Rival status, at least in Nick’s mind. 

The voice hesitates. “He helped me all day today. But he says he’s busy, and that he has other things to do.” Another pause. “And also that he needs to eat. And that I need to eat, and – ” 

Nick cuts him off. “Well, I’ve got a net and a bunch of sticks and, like, every single goddamn shooting aide that’s ever been invented. I’m busy in the morning, but you could come over tomorrow afternoon, if you want?” 

“You can’t do it now?” 

Nick looks at the dark outside and frowns. “No. I’m gonna go to sleep pretty soon.” 

“Oh.” The boy sounds disappointed. 

“Tomorrow,” Nicks says. “We can practice as much as you want tomorrow.” And then he reels off his address. 

“Okay.” The boy pauses. “Thank you.” And then he hangs up. 

Nick is left staring at the phone. 

The phone rings again almost immediately. Same number, and Nick brings it back up to his ear. “Yeah?” 

“My name is Kyle. I realized – ” Nick can hear him hesitate over the line. “I realized I’m supposed to tell you that, and I hadn’t. Sorry, I – sorry.” 

Nick shakes his head. He grins down at the carpet. “Kyle. Nice to meet you.” 

 

 

Kyle’s first shot misses the net entirely, hits the garage door, and sets it to rattling in it’s frame. 

Kyle winces. “Sorry.” 

Nick gives his shoulder a consolatory pat. “Well, I don’t know if you noticed,” he tips his head toward the garage, nodding at the sea of black streaks that mark it, “but it’s not exactly the first time that’s happened.” 

Kyle still looks embarrassed. He’d arrived half an hour ago, with a stick that looked brand new but well-worn gloves. He’d said, no, he didn’t want a soda. No, he didn’t need a snack before they started, he wanted to shoot pucks. 

“Here.” Nick covers Kyle’s hand with his. “Left hand lower.” Today was the one day this week Nick didn’t have hockey on his schedule, but this isn’t so bad. Kyle’s easy to teach. He pays close, focused attention to what Nick says and watches him even closer when he demonstrates. Nick steps back to give Kyle room. 

Kyle frowns down at his hands. He’s got a baseball cap on, but Nick can see the look of concentration on his face. He repeats Nick’s instructions to himself, almost inaudible. Then he takes a breath, lets it go. 

The next puck he gets some elevation on. Not much, but it’s there. And it goes in the net. 

Kyle uses the toe of the stick to drag another puck into position. He’s still grumbling to himself, and he sounds exactly like Nick Leddy whenever Leddy’s pissed about something. 

“That was good,” Nick says. “You got some air on that one.” 

“It was supposed to be higher.” Kyle stares at the net like he can direct the puck in with the weight of his gaze. “I keep trying – I should be getting better – ” 

“You are getting better.” 

“Not – ” Kyle’s next shot goes just wide of the gap in the shooter tutor, “ – fast enough.” He turns and looks at Nick. “I have to make the team this fall. I have to help Leds.” 

He sounds so dead-set on it. Like the world’s going to end if he doesn’t. And he’s looking at Nick like Nick has the power to make it happen. 

Nick swallows. “It’s about the follow through. Just like a little chip shot in golf.” Even as he’s speaking them, he can hear the words in his dad’s voice in his head. 

Kyle is giving him a blank stare. 

Nick frowns. “You’ve golfed, right?” And when Kyle continues to look at him, “Or putt-putt? It’s the same move in mini golf. Come on, everybody’s been to Putt’er There at least once.” 

Kyle blinks. “Oh. Yeah.” He nods and looks away, and in what is very clearly a lie says, “I’ve totally been there.” 

Nick puts his hand on his hip. “Chip shot,” he says again, and points at the puck. 

Kyle tugs at his gloves and takes the stick in two hands again. He bends, he takes a breath – 

And then straightens again and looks at Nick. “Okay, actually I’ve never played golf. Or mini golf.” He sounds apologetic. When Nick stays quiet, he adds, “I didn’t want you to think I was weird.” 

There’s something really amazing about the way he just comes out and says it. No bullshit. And he’s looking at Nick like Nick’s opinion matters. Like Nick’s opinion might be the most important thing in the whole world. It’s kind of terrifying. And it’s kind of rush, too. And for one second, it feels like Nick’s stupid heart stops stock-still in his chest. “I – just – ” Nick shuts his mouth again, because his tongue and his brain aren’t talking to each other, and nothing he wants to say makes any sense. “Just stand there,” he manages. 

Kyle obediently goes still. Nick stands behind him, looking over Kyle’s shoulder, his hands over Kyle’s hands, drawing the stick back, guiding it through the motion. “Rotate your wrist. Right at the end, see?” 

Kyle’s skin is warm to the touch, and they’re close enough that when Kyle takes a deep breath and rolls his shoulders, he brushes against Nick’s chest. 

If Nick bent just a little bit more and turned his face, he could probably feel the tickle of Kyle’s curls where they spill out from under his cap. His nose would be right at Kyle’s throat, his mouth would be – 

Too close. Nick’s too close, closer than he needs to be, but Kyle doesn’t say anything, and he doesn’t move away. He doesn’t feel as slight as Nick remembers him looking. Under his skin, Nick can feel wiry, lean muscle. Nick puts his hand over Kyle’s again, slides it to where he wants it, leans in close – 

Too close. Much too close again – from here he could – this is all very – 

Nick’s face goes hot. 

Hockey. Kyle came here to learn hockey. Right. 

Nick steps back. He takes a breath. “So like that.” His voice is maybe not dead-on normal, but it’s close enough. 

The puck elevates, right on target. 

Kyle throws a grin over his shoulder at Nick, brilliantly, transparently happy and Nick’s stupid brain can’t come up with a single thing to say other than, “Great.” 

Kyle’s grin goes wider. 

It’s completely impossible not to smile back. And honestly, it’s a shot that if you hadn’t known any better, you could have mistaken as coming from someone who had been playing for years. Nick shakes his head. “So – what happened, anyway? You just woke up one day and decided you wanted to play hockey?” 

“Sort of.” Kyle turns back to the net. He’s already pulling another puck towards him, and looking down at his hands. 

“Want to take a break?” 

“I want – ” Kyle stops. When Nick moves to peer at this face, the smile has slipped away; he looks anxious. “I want to remember how I did it. I don’t want to forget. I need to remember how I was standing. How my hands were. How it felt. I need to be able to do it again.” 

“Kyle.” Nick rests a hand on his arm. “Don’t worry. We’re gonna practice this. We’re gonna do it a lot. You’ll get it right.” 

 

 

The texts Nick gets read like this: 

_what stick do you use and why?_

And: 

_what’s a headman transition?_

And: 

_what does it mean to go bar down? How do you do that?_

They arrive at all hours. Nick wakes up to questions that were sent in the middle of the night. Or early in the morning. Or the middle of the afternoon. At least one or two everyday; more if Nick is quick about answering. 

When his phone buzzes at the table, Nick shoots his mother an apologetic look. Even with the ringer turned off, even with his phone in his pocket, the vibration seems loud. 

Dinner is quiet now that it’s just the two of them. 

She glances at him but doesn’t say anything. 

Nick waits until she’s turned her attention back to her salad before trying to work his phone out of his pocket. 

_how do you do the thing where you use the point to pull the puck back and then catch it?_

Nick frowns down at the message. _Use the point to_ – what? 

“Nick,” she says. “You know how I feel about phones at the table.” 

Nick glances up, caught. 

“Unless you’re just staring so intently at your crotch?” She gestures with her fork. “Is it doing something I should know about?” 

Nick can feel himself flush. “Mom.” 

She raises an eyebrow at him. “Put your phone away.” 

Nick thinks: _toe drag. He means toe drag._ He sets down his fork. 

“Nick.” Her voice has a note of warning in it. 

“This’ll just take a second,” he says. He types, _too hard to explain over text. Call you soon._ He adds a smiley face. He grins at her, setting the phone on the table and raising both hands as though time had been called. “I’m done.” 

She shakes her head. “Eat. You have a ton of things you need to do tonight – ” 

The phone, lying on the table, lights up with _HURRY._ Like it’s some kind of emergency. 

She stares at him. Nick raises his eyebrows back at her. “See? I’m not answering – I’m totally done.” 

She sighs. “Anyway – ” 

The phone buzzes again. Kyle has added a single, smiling emoji. The same one Nick used. Nick tries to hide his grin. 

“Well,” she says, after a stern beat of silence. “At least you’re smiling.” 

When they’re done, Nick makes a point of clearing the dishes. He scrapes the remains into the sink and thinks about how to explain a toe drag to Kyle. He must be getting better at puck handling if he’s asking about that. Or he’s just ambitious. Nick contemplates the plate in front of him, turning it in his hands. It would be easier just to show him. But between summer league, and workouts, and summer school, he hasn’t seen Kyle for a few days. Maybe if they practice for a few hours, he can talk Kyle into doing something after. Kyle’s not the easiest to convince to go do other stuff – Nick can still picture his face the last time Nick had suggested stopping early. Kyle had looked confused, and then suggested, in a very earnest voice, “or we could practice more?” 

But when Nick does get him out, they have fun. Last week Nick talked him into going bowling, and Kyle had acted like it was the coolest thing in the world. Like it was all brand new. He was probably just humoring Nick, but it still made it fun. 

His mother leans up against the counter. She reaches for the plate in Nick’s hands. “I can do that. You don’t need worry about it.” 

Nick holds it up, out of reach. “I don’t mind. And you cooked.” 

She smiles at him, crooked but familiar. “You’re my very favorite son,” she says. “But – you’ve got a whole packet worth of assignments to do for summer school.” 

“It’s not due ‘til Friday,” Nick says. “I’ve got all of tomorrow to do it.” 

Her smile slips. “Nicky, you’re gonna be with your dad tomorrow.” 

Nick forgot. The look on her face says she knows he forgot – and what she thinks about the likelihood of Nick getting his homework done when he’s with his dad. 

Nick sets the plate aside and picks up the next one. He pushes it under the water. “I think I’m gonna work out with the guys instead.” 

Her hand grips the counter. “I know he wanted to see you.” 

There’s something sticky clinging to the edge of the plate. Nick works it over with the rough side of the sponge. Convenient thing, two-sided sponges. He wonders who holds the patent on that. He wonders if they’re rich. A sponge empire. A sponge emporium. 

“Nick.” 

“I’m gonna work out, and then I’m gonna go to the rink with the guys. As long as I skate, he won’t care.” Maybe the two-sided sponge was invented in Minnesota. Lots of things were invented in Minnesota. The stapler was. And scotch tape. Bundt pans. The pacemaker. And probably about a hundred different implements for dealing with snow. 

She lays a hand on his arm. 

Nick drops the plate. “Can we not talk about this right now?” He winces at how loud his voice comes out. “Sorry,” he adds, quieter. 

She doesn’t say anything. 

“I’m gonna – ” Nick gestures with one dripping hand. “I’ve got homework.” 

Upstairs, Nick sits on the edge of his bed and breathes with eyes squeezed shut. He’s too old to be a baby about this. He’s too old to – 

Nick swallows hard. Successful, at least for now, in fighting down that hot lump in his throat. He puts music on, loud, just in case he’s not later. 

He grabs his phone and texts his dad, _gonna skate with the boys tomorrow afternoon._

And then he texts Kyle, _wanna meet at Fogerty tomorrow?_

Kyle responds right away, _yes. What time?_ Followed by a long string of smiling emoji. 

Nick’s dad responds while Nick is answering Kyle: _I thought we were going to do shooting drills at Scott’s?_

Nick stares at his phone. _I can work on shooting with the guys,_ he sends back. 

There’s a long delay before the next message comes in: _make sure you actually work on shooting. An afternoon of sloppy shinny isn’t going to teach you anything._

Nick doesn’t respond. 

 

 

Fogerty is gray and the air inside is as stale as it always is, and Nick has a moment of being unsure whether he really has it in him to do this today. But Kyle is waiting. It’s fine, Nick tells himself, taking a breath. He’s got this. 

Kyle is actually already out on the ice when Nick arrives, tracing out figure eights of various sizes. So focused on what he’s doing that he doesn’t look up when Nick steps out. Nick taps his stick against the ice to get his attention. “So. What do you want to work on?” 

Kyle’s eyes light up. “My backhand. And pivots. And crossovers on the left side. And hitting. And also face offs – oh and how to cheat at face offs. You know what I mean, right? Where they do that thing with their feet? Do you know how to do that?” He pauses for breath. “What do you want to work on?” 

Kyle sounds – happy. Kyle sounds like he’d be thrilled to work on any one of those things. Like he’s thrilled just to be out here. Like he’s only ever been out on the ice by choice and like this is the best of all possible worlds. 

Usually, that makes Nick feel good by proxy. Makes him feel excited about playing just because Kyle is. But today, Nick is so very, very tired. 

Looking at Kyle, it feels like the air holds no oxygen at all. Nick’s chest goes tight and his eyes burn. He shrugs and instead of looking up, he chases snow across the ice with the toe of his stick. He says, before he can think any better of it, “Mostly I just wanted to get out of my house.” 

“Oh.” Kyle falls quiet. When Nick manages to look up, Kyle is frowning at him, worry etched into his forehead, mouth a thin line. 

Nick needs to get it together. He forces out a breath. “Let’s just – let’s just start with some passing, okay?” 

Kyle says, “Sure.” But quiet, and hesitant like he’s not sure at all. He looks at Nick another moment, before skating the width of the rink, where he turns, and waits. 

Nick takes another long breath. Hockey. And at least one of them wants to play. He sends Kyle the puck. 

Kyle catches it clean. He starts the motions to return it, but then aborts. His hands still and he straightens. He skates back to Nick, and his eyes are wide looking up, but his gaze is steady. “I know you’re sad,” he says. “But I don’t know what to say to make you feel better.” 

> ` (You didn’t know until then, how someone else’s sadness could feel exactly the same as your own. You didn’t realize it was all the same ache.) `

The whole rink feels quiet. Kyle blinks up at him, and there’s absolutely no bullshit in his expression. Nick appreciates that. “This makes me feel better,” Nick says. He gestures at Kyle, at the ice, and when it’s quiet like this, when it’s just the two of them, it’s true. “This makes me feel a lot better.” 

``

>   
>  `(And how his happiness could become your happiness, and – `   
>    
>  `Right, okay – you’re right. Get out of the story.)`   
> 

Kyle studies his face. He nods, and he reaches out slow and almost hesitant, and gives Nick a stick tap. And without waiting for anything else, he returns to his place at the far boards. 

 

 

In the changing room after, Kyle leans down to undo his laces, then pauses. Without looking at Nick, he says, “you could come back to my house for awhile, if you wanted?” 

Nick thinks about driving back to his dad’s. He thinks about the essays he’s supposed to be writing. He thinks about his homework for the summer school classes that are going to let him get out of here early. He thinks about the time he’s supposed to put in at the gym. And then he says, “yeah, okay.” 

Nick follows him to a large house in a quiet subdivision. It’s bigger than its neighbors, but the grass is long and the landscaping unkempt. Kyle pushes in through the front door. “I’m home!” he yells, and drops his gear in a heap in the corner. He glances over his shoulder at Nick. “Are you hungry? Come on. Kitchen’s this way.” 

There’s a boy sitting at the kitchen counter. He’s scrolling through something on his phone, and he doesn’t look up as they come in. Kyle waves a hand. “That’s my brother, Curt.” 

Curt does look up at that. He squints at Nick. 

“Hi.” Nick lifts a hand. “I’m Nick.” 

Curt doesn’t respond. He swings his gaze back to Kyle. 

Kyle ducks inside the fridge. 

Curt and Kyle look remarkably similar. And they look to be about the same age. “Are you guys twins?” Nick asks. 

“Yes,” Curt says, just at the same moment Kyle answers, “No.” 

Kyle leans around the door of the fridge to glare at his brother. They exchange a long, silent look. “Well, technically yes,” Kyle amends. “But we’re not identical, so really we’re more like just siblings.” 

“Don’t be a dick,” Curt says. 

“Okay.” Nick nods, slow. “But – you were born at the same time?” 

Kyle grabs soda from the fridge and shoves a bag of chips at him. “Want to go watch TV?” 

“Sure,” Nick agrees. 

Kyle takes him down to a furnished basement. He flips the TV on and surfs until he finds the Twins game. “Is this okay?” 

“This is fine.” 

Minnesota is down 7-1 when a woman’s voice calls down the stairs, “Kyle?” 

Kyle thumps his head against the back of the couch. He sighs before yelling back, “What?” 

The woman comes down the stairs and stands directly in front of the TV. “Curt said you brought a friend over.” 

“I thought you were working,” Kyle says. 

“I was working.” She hasn’t moved. “Curt said you brought a friend over.” 

Kyle gives her an exaggerated shrug. He flips a hand at Nick. “Mom, this is Nick Bjugstad. Nick, this is my mom.” 

Her eyes lock on Nick’s face. “Nick Bjugstad.” She smiles. 

Kyle’s expression goes abruptly concerned. “Mom, no.” 

“Hi, Nick. I’m Carol Rau.” 

“Mom, come on. We’re watching the game.” Kyle’s voice has taken on a note of pleading. 

“I could just go,” Nick offers. “If this is a bad time, or – ” 

“No, no, no.” She waves off his suggestion. “I’m really glad to finally get to meet you.” 

Kyle drops his face into his hands. He rubs his temples. 

“You and Kyle have been hanging out a lot.” 

“I guess?” Nick allows. 

“What sort of things do you guys talk about?” 

Nick darts a look at Kyle, but Kyle still has his face buried. “We talk a lot about hockey?” 

“Hockey, of course.” 

Nick smiles, doing his best impression of wholesome and upstanding. “I’m helping teach him how to play, Mrs. Rau.” 

“Dr. Rau. So I’ve heard,” She corrects and agrees all in one breath. She’s still smiling, though. She gestures for him to go on. 

“And – ” Nick gropes for something more. “We played mini golf? And went bowling?” 

“Did you have fun?” 

Nick shrugs. “Sure. Yeah. We had fun.” 

“Would you say the two of you discussed the subjective aspects of bowling – how you felt about it? Or were your conversations limited to facts? Scores, how many times you played, that sort of thing?” 

“Please stop.” Kyle sounds pissed. His face, what Nick can see of it, is red. 

“I mean.” Nick shrugs again, uncomfortable. “I don’t remember exactly what we talked about.” 

She nods. “Sure, sure. What about outside person-to-person interaction – do you two talk on the phone a lot?” 

“We text?” 

“You text!” She looks thrilled. “Texting. That’s brilliant.” 

Kyle has gone very still, the line of his shoulders makes a tight, unhappy curve. 

“You know, text is the great equalizer when you’re dealing with deficient or atypical processing of social cues. There’s a finite number of variables dealing in text, which opens up the problem solving strategies exponentially – ” 

“ _Mom_.” It comes out sounding choked. 

She stops midsentence and looks at Kyle. For one long beat, she says nothing and then she starts to, and stops again. Her hand lifts, but the gesture goes nowhere. When she finally speaks, all she says is, “I’ll let you get back to your game.” 

Kyle mumbles, “Thank you.” He leaves his hands over his face, even after she’s disappeared up the stairs. 

Nick turns back to the TV. The Twins brought a runner in while he was being grilled. 7-2. “That’s your mom, huh?” 

Kyle heaves a sigh. “Sorry. She’s a scientist.” 

Nick steals a look at him. Kyle’s face, when he finally lifts it, is flushed. He blinks rapidly, a particular shine to his eyes. And he won’t look at Nick. 

“Hey, come on.” Nick kicks at Kyle’s foot with his. “She wasn’t that bad.” 

Kyle shakes his head, still staring straight ahead. “She doesn’t get it. I don’t like – ” He goes quiet. Nick can see him struggle to take a breath – the long, stuttering draw of someone trying to calm themself. 

Nick looks away. 

He listens to Kyle take another shaky breath. In the cocooning dark of the basement, the glow from the TV is the only light. And the only other sounds are the distant crowd and the crack of a bat and the announcer’s mumbling. Compared to that, the shake in Kyle’s voice feels loud and close, and seems to echo through the room. 

“My parents are getting divorced.” Nick fills the silence he doesn’t know how to fill with the words he doesn’t know how to say. He drops them into the quiet. The first time he’s ever given those words voice, and they seem so loud in the dark. The last one sticks in his throat. He coughs to clear it. “My dad’s living at the Best Western.” 

Kyle looks over at him. His eyes are red. His face has gone still. “Are you sad about it?” 

Sad and viciously angry and confused and million other things. If his feelings were cards, Nick would be flipping through the whole deck, a dozen times a minute. “Maybe,” he tells the TV. “I don’t really know how I feel.” 

Kyle nods. “I think that’s okay. If you don’t know how to feel. Feelings are complicated.” 

Nick laughs, and even if it catches a little in his throat, it feels good. “Thanks.” He watches the player on the screen swing his bat and step up to the box, watches him toe the earth either for traction or luck, and every move seems vibrant and outlined and hyperreal. It takes Nick the better part of an inning before the lump in his throat subsides. And two before he feels like he can quite breathe right. 

Kyle stays quiet next to him the whole time. Eyes on the game. And if he has anything else to say about Nick’s situation, he keeps it to himself. 

It’s a whole lot better than the bullshit the rest of the world has been trying to feed him. “I don’t think you’re deficient,” Nick says, hoping it doesn’t sound too out of nowhere. He darts a look at Kyle. “By the way.” 

Kyle looks back, that sharp gaze searching Nick’s face. When Nick meets his eyes, Kyle gives him an unsteady smile. “Thanks.” 

Something heavy settles on Nick’s chest. He could say _of course._ He could say, _thank you for being my friend_. But all those words catch and lodge in his throat. None of them feel right. None of them feel like they have the right weight. 

Kyle is looking right at him, his eyes bright in the dark. For a second, there’s nothing but them in whole world, and it’s like Kyle can see right into him, and it’s like he knows Kyle, better than he should know anyone he met a month ago. Kyle looks at him, and whatever it is between them feels huge and heavy, and all Nick’s words catch in this throat. 

Time hasn’t stopped, though. And the moment passes. 

Nick nods back at the TV. “Morneau’s up.” 

 

 

“Hey.” Kyle’s voice on the phone sounds edgy. 

Nick frowns. “Hey.” Kyle hardly ever calls; he almost always texts. And when he does call, it’s usually because he’s excited about something, or because he’s proving a point. (“See?” Nick overheard him say to someone in the background. “I can talk on the phone. It’s fine.” And then later, “Fuck off, Curt.”) 

But now he sounds anxious, evasive. It gives Nick pause. “What’s up?” 

“I have to cancel,” Kyle says. “Sorry.” 

“Oh.” That sucks. That means Nick’s stuck on his own in Blaine for the day. He kicks at the leg of the coffee table. “That’s okay. Next week then?” 

“I don’t know – ” Kyle’s words all come out in a rush, “I’m not sure how often we can skate anymore, because Eden Prairie’s team practices are starting up. Not, like, real ones. But a lot of the guys, and it’s Tuesdays and Thursdays and I need to go, you know? Because I don’t know a lot of them well, and Leddy says this way I can get to know them. And also see how they play, and also – ” 

Nick breaks in, “Kyle. It’s okay. If your team’s practicing then you should go to that. It’s fine.” And if Eden Prairie’s letting Kyle tag along to their practices, maybe he really does have a chance of making the roster. The JV team, anyway. “Good luck,” Nick says, and he thinks he pulled off sounding lofty yet supportive. “I hope things work out.” 

“Well.” There’s a beat of silence on the line, Nick can hear him swallow. “Thanks again for helping me.” 

“I should probably go,” Nick says. “Lots of things to do today.” 

“Right.” Kyle’s voice is small. “Goodbye.” 

It stings. Even though it shouldn’t. It’s not like Kyle’s picking Eden Prairie over him means anything. Or is unexpected. Kyle said making the Eden Prairie team was the whole point of learning to play hockey. It’s not like it’s a surprise that Kyle’s going to take what Nick taught him and go help a rival team. That’s why he wanted Nick’s help in the first place, Nick reminds himself. He wanted help learning how to play hockey, Nick gave it, now he gets to go use it, and it’s fine. 

It’s totally fine. 

It’s probably about time Nick started focusing on Blaine’s team, anyway. Even if the thought of organized practices makes him sort of nauseous. 

Last year, his dad ran their pre-season practices. Nick should probably talk to him about it. 

_Should,_ Nick thinks. _Won’t._

 

 

Blaine plays Eden Prairie for the first time in October. 

Halfway through the second period, Kyle embarrasses Smitty, ducking around him and popping the puck in short side. __

Nick should be pissed at him. There’s definitely no love lost between Eden Prairie and Blaine, and Kyle – who he’s barely seen in two months – who ditched him the moment he got from Nick what he needed – just put his team up, and managed to make Blaine High School’s best D look pretty stupid in the process. 

Smitty shuffles back into place on the bench and grabs a water bottle, looking disgusted. “Who the fuck is that tiny motherfucker?” 

“That – ” Across the ice, Kyle is doing his fly by, with a grin on his face that Nick can see from here. 

Nick watches him bump fists with Leddy, Sudman, and a whole bunch of other guys Nick recognizes from the endless rounds of the Eden Prairie-Blaine rivalry. Nick should be pissed. 

Instead, he starts to laugh. “That – that is Kyle Rau. He just – ” _Just started playing this summer_ , Nick wants to say, but it seems impossible. Smitty would never believe him. He barely believes it himself. Nick trails off; Smitty’s not paying attention anyway. 

Nick watches someone on the opposing bench put Kyle in a headlock, give him a rough, congratulatory shake. 

And all Nick can think is: _holy shit. He did it._

Kyle plays like something fearless, with an enormous grin on his face the entire time. Unafraid – like he’s never turned an ankle, or taken a bad hit. Like he’s never been dragged to the rink, or been yelled at for being exhausted, or had a game he was just ready to be over. 

He plays like he’s playing just because it’s fun. Because it’s what he wants to do. 

And it’s the first game of the year where the clock running down catches Nick by surprise. The first game where he thinks, _wait – already?_

Eden Prairie beats them, 4-2. 

Kyle drags Nick Leddy over to the Blaine bench as soon as the game ends, one hand clutching Leddy’s jersey by the sleeve. 

“This is Nick,” Kyle says to Leddy, coming to a stop in front of Nick, and smiling so hard it looks like his face might split in half. “He helped me learn how to play.” 

Leddy runs a hand through his hair, making disorderly wet spikes out of it. He winces at a couple of the looks the Blaine players are giving them. He nods at Nick. “Bjugs.” His voice is almost an apology. 

Nick scratches the back of his neck. 

Leddy looks down at Kyle. “I know Nick,” he tells Kyle. “We – ” He waves a vague hand at the space between them, like he’s trying to encompass the overlapping smallness of their hockey world. 

“Oh. Right.” Kyle nods. “Well, that’s good right? Now we’re all friends.” 

“Right,” Leddy says, dragging it out, and it would be hard to sound more skeptical. 

Nick clears his throat. “You looked like you were having fun,” he tells Kyle. 

Kyle’s smile goes a notch brighter. “It’s amazing. I love this. This is everything I wanted to do.” 

> ` (It was _everything_. You didn’t know yet that that could be bad thing. Even when maybe looking at Nick, you should have realized. But you didn’t know lots of things. You were so new. So very, very new.) `

Kyle bumps his shoulder into Leddy’s side, and looks up at him, expectant. Leddy, for his part, looks like he has no idea what Kyle wants him to say. “He helped me,” Kyle repeats in a small voice. “He helped me get a lot better.” 

Leddy looks from Nick to Kyle and back again. “Thanks for doing such a good job?” 

Nick rolls his eyes. “Well I’m regretting it a little bit now.” But he grins to let Kyle know he’s teasing. “Congrats.” 

 

 

On the drive home, his dad won’t stop talking about Kyle. “That kid’s got drive, you can tell.” 

Nick thinks, _of course he does._ And, _of course I can._ And, _stop talking._

His dad nods to himself, and one hand claps down on Nick’s shoulder. “You have to want it, Nick.” 

As if that was some great piece of wisdom. 

Nick does his best to block him out, and thinks instead about Kyle’s face, and the memory of how he’d felt watching Kyle during the game – how the whole mood had been light – the game had felt like a _game_ – like something they were all there to play for the fun of it. Nick wasn’t worried if any of the staff from the University of Minnesota were there. He wasn’t thinking about the capricious scouts up in the stands, or how their favor was his ticket out of here. 

Nick just thought about playing, and he wants to hold onto that. To remember that. 

But instead, in the car, there’s just a feelings of tightness in his chest. The air feels too hot and Nick’s skin itches. He stares at his father, hunched forward, as if leaning could get them through traffic faster, his hands tapping out an uneven, impatient staccato on the wheel. Familiar, because this is where Nick sees him now: behind the wheel going to or from games, or in the equally well-known posture of standing with arms folded in the corner of the rink – eyes forever tracking the action, and mouth always half-parted, as if constantly in the middle of sucking in the air that will be needed for a yell. Nick has excised him from every other part of his life, but the image of his father in these two postures remains indelible in his mind, like something traced over so many times, with so much force, the paper itself has been indented. 

The image is as permanent as his presence. Wherever hockey is, he will be. As long as Nick plays here, he’ll do it under his father’s gaze. 

Nick’s good mood is gone. His dad has no memory of the thin boy at the rink that day back in June, Nick is sure of it. He doesn’t know Nick worked with him. He doesn’t know about all those hours Nick spent teaching him the game – on top of everything else Nick was supposed to be doing that summer. He doesn’t know the significance of him playing at all, much less well. _You don’t know the half of it,_ Nick thinks. _So stop talking._

“Think about that the next time you’re having a hard time motivating. It takes work.” His father nods to himself again. 

Nick can feel words that taste like bile building up in the back of his throat. He clamps his lips shut, and nudges the volume of the radio up instead. He doesn’t say a word, the whole drive home. 

In the driveway, his dad looks at Nick. He reaches for Nick’s shoulder again. “I know you’re disappointed about the loss. It’s early, though – and you played real well. I’m proud of how you played right up until the last whistle.” 

Nick can feel himself flush, and it’s like with just those words his dad has re-cast the whole game as a performance just for him. _It wasn’t for you,_ Nick wants to say. _It has nothing to do with you. I’m just playing to get out._

His father’s eyes linger on Nick’s face, and his hands turn over one another in awkward, twisting motions. He looks down, and his lips part to speak. And it might be the look on his dad’s face, or the tightness of the air in the truck, or the way his hands won’t stop twisting, one over the other, but Nick knows whatever he’s about to say, it’s not going to be about hockey. 

“I gotta go,” Nick says. He grabs his bag. 

 

 

The text from Kyle reads: _Jackson is having a party. Do you want to go?_

The follow up texts read, in order: _to the party I mean_

And: _the party is at 10pm on Friday the 21 st. _

And: _but it’s okay if you come later because Leddy says there will be people there all night._

And: _Jackson is a guy on my team._

And: _he plays D and he hit you in the second period of our last game. I though I should tell you that._

And, finally: _I will be going to the party._

> ` (God, you were embarrassing. It’s okay to admit that, though. And it’s okay to forgive yourself. It’s important to forgive yourself.) `

“Are you sure it’s okay for me to come?” Nick asks, when responding to all those texts seems like too much. 

“Everyone’s inviting their friends,” Kyle says, and it’s in his voice that he can’t imagine why Nick would even ask. 

“Yeah, but – ” Nick stops. He would like to see Kyle. Kyle wants to see him. If the rest of Eden Prairie doesn’t like Nick being at their party, they can get over it. “I’d love to come.” 

Nick calls Smitty next. “Can I tell my dad I’m crashing at your place Friday night?” 

Smitty is eating something, and it takes him a couple tries to make whatever it is he’s trying to say intelligible. “How come?” 

“I’m going to a party down in Eden Prairie.” 

The sounds of Smitty chewing come back over the line. Slow and contemplative. He takes his time answering. “What do you want to go down there for? That’s getting into cake-eater territory.” 

Nick rolls his eyes. “Yeah, I know, but can I?” 

Smitty pauses again, and it’s a heavier silence. “You haven’t wanted to hang out with us all year, but you want to drive down to Eden Prairie to go to a party.” 

There’s not a single person on Blaine’s team that Nick’s dad hasn’t coached at one point or another. And with all the camps and clinics he runs, most of them have worked for him, too. He’s at all their games and most of their practices. But there’s probably not a single person in the entire town that doesn’t know where he’s living now, and most of them probably know why. 

Nick stares up at the ceiling. He closes his eyes. He pictures going out with the team. If they didn’t ask about his dad, they’d ask about the U, and Nick can think of a single thing about either situation he wants to discuss. What’s he going to say? _This guy who taught half of us to play hockey, who you think is so great, is really kind of an asshole? And, oh, by the way, I’m bailing on our team._

Smitty makes a frustrated sound. “You know, Bjugs, we go way back – ” 

And that’s the point, isn’t it? They all go way back. He knows them and they know him. Everyone in this town knows too much. “So can I?” Nick cuts him off. 

Smitty stops. “Tell your dad?” He hesitates, and for a long moment, Nick isn’t certain what he’s going to say. “Sure, Nick. Sure.” His voice is dry. 

Nick lets out the breath he was holding. “I told my mom I was going to be at my dad’s and I told my dad I was going to be with you. So if he asks, I am.” Nick pauses. “But he’s not going to ask.” 

Smitty just hums, noncommittal. “We’re supposed to help him tomorrow – stow the last of the summer camp gear. You remember that, right? He said he wanted to start early.” 

“I remember, I remember.” Nick forgot. “I’ll be back in time for that. I’ll head to your place and we can go over together.” 

“Okay, well don’t – ” Smitty hesitates again. “Don’t go too hard this weekend, okay Bjugs? It’d be nice to, you know, win a game every now and then.” 

It’s like a hard press, a weight coming down on his shoulders. His skin feels too small. The room feels too small. Nick closes his eyes again. 

“Nick?” 

“Yeah,” Nick says. He rubs a spot between his eyes, chasing an ache. “I heard you.” 

 

 

Nick walks through the door with his eyes down and his baseball cap pulled down low, but there’s way to disguise being over six feet tall. He barely makes it into the room before someone stops him with a hand pressed flat to the center of his chest. 

Nick looks up to find himself being glared at by Andrew Sudman. 

Sudman says, “The fuck are you doing here?” He has to strain to be heard over the thump of music, but the disdain in his voice is still clear. 

Sudman is one of Eden Prairie’s seniors. “Leddy’s still got you working the door, Suds?” 

Sudman scowls. He gives Nick’s chest a shove. 

“Easy,” Nick says. “I was invited.” 

“Invited by who?” 

“Nick!” Kyle ducks right under Sudman’s arm to stand in front of Nick. “You came.” He sounds pleased. 

“You invited Bjugstad?” Sudman’s still frowning. 

Kyle barely glances at him. “Yes. Of course.” He turns to Nick, then he freezes, holds one finger up to tell Nick to wait, and turns back to Sudman. “Have you watched the latest episode of The Voice?” His tone is perfectly serious. 

Over Kyle’s head, Nick mouths, “The Voice?” 

Sudman glares. He looks embarrassed, but to Kyle, he says. “Yes. And it’s fucking _crazy._ ” 

“I _know_. And we have to talk about it soon. But right now I need to get Nick a drink.” He grabs Nick’s arm. “Come on.” 

Kyle fills a cup from a keg in the kitchen. He offers it to Nick with a shy look. “Here. You don’t have to. But if you want to, here.” 

“Thanks.” Nick accepts the cup. 

After a moment’s hesitation, Kyle fills one for himself as well. “We can – ” He turns to Nick, but seems suddenly unsure. “I think there’s supposed be dancing? Or, actually, it seems like people are just standing around? Or there’s beer pong in the garage.” He stops and looks at Nick. “Sorry, I’m not really good at this.” 

“At beer pong?” 

“At parties.” And he looks at Nick, with a smile that’s half a worried twist, and an expression like somehow Nick’s enjoyment of shitty beer in Sam Jackson’s kitchen is really, really important. 

Nick doesn’t really care about anyone else here. He definitely doesn’t care about the beer. On the way in, Nick saw an empty couch in what looked like a home office. “You want to just sit? Catch up?” 

Kyle grins. 

They set their cups on the edge of a desk, sit side by side on the couch. Nick says, “it seems like you’re getting along with your team really well. Seems like things are working out.” 

Kyle catches his lip between his teeth, and he’s grinning down at the carpet. “It’s been really, really great. I like them a lot,” he says. “And I love playing.” 

“You get along with Suds, I see.” Which is fine. 

“Suds and Ryan and the other Ryan and I watch The Voice.” Kyle gestures, drawing imaginary groupings in the air in front of him. “And then Paul and Phil and I watch The Amazing Race.” 

“Yeah?” 

Kyle is getting animated, Nick can see a flush start, high on his cheeks. “I love reality TV. Have you heard of reality TV?” He’s either being serious or doing the best deadpan delivery Nick’s ever heard. 

“It’s _amazing_ ,” Kyle continues, glancing up at Nick’s face. “Okay, yes, I know, I know. It’s just TV, but still.” He says it like it’s something he’s caught shit for, before. But he’s smiling, like it was gentle shit. Nick decides Eden Prairie can live. 

It’s easy to watch Kyle, as he continues to draw invisible diagrams in the are, connecting the contestants of one show to another. Tracing the career trajectory of some stranger’s success. It’s easy to listen to him as he goes on – about television, about his team, about how people on his team interpret television. He holds his cup in one hand, and as the level of liquid drops, his gestures get more expansive. His theories more adamant. 

He does, eventually, wind down, and his voice is softer when he asks, “What about you? How are – things?” 

“Things are – mostly the same.” Nick slumps against the couch and Kyle follows him back. “I miss hanging out with you,” he admits. 

Kyle’s right next to him. Looking at him very close, and very still. His hand on the cushion between them rests just inches from Nick’s. “I miss hanging out with you, too,” Kyle says. “I miss talking with you about hockey stuff. Or just stuff. I thought – ” He breaks off, and laughs under his breath. “I wanted to call you, but I – I thought maybe you’d just tell me to ask somebody on my team. And I couldn’t come up with an excuse – ” 

“You don’t – ” Nick moves his hand, just a little, just enough that the edge of his hand presses up against the edge of Kyle’s. He can hear the way nerves are making his voice tight. “You don’t need an excuse to call me. You could just call me.” 

Kyle moves his hand, just the slightest bit. But closer, not away, so that his fingers overlap Nick’s. 

They are – possibly, technically, by some definitions anyway – holding hands. 

Nick’s heart trips in his chest. He manages a glance over at Kyle. 

Kyle is watching him back. As steady and intent as he always is. Eyes bright in the dark room. 

Nick can hear his own heartbeat. His mouth’s gone dry, but he can feel himself leaning in towards Kyle, and he can feel the shifting of the couch as Kyle leans in towards him. 

“There you are.” Nick Leddy is standing in the doorway. “What are you doing in Jackson’s mom’s office? Jacks is gonna be pissed.” Leddy blinks at both of them, and then he focuses in on Kyle and his eyebrows knit together. “Are you drinking?” 

“I’m having _one drink_.” Kyle sounds irritated. “Everybody else is drinking.” 

Leddy’s expression is dark. “You shouldn’t be.” 

Kyle’s mouth goes tight. 

“What do you care?” Nick asks. “He can drink if he wants.” 

Leddy stares at him, and for just a moment it’s like he can’t figure out why Nick is even there, much less weighing in. He shakes his head, looks back at Kyle. “Kyle, come on. We gotta go.” 

Nick feels himself flush. “Oh, now you get to tell him when he has to leave?” 

Leddy’s face goes red. “He’s my rookie. I’m his ride, so yeah, I do. Kyle, let’s go.” 

Nick’s never started a fight at a party before. But hey, there’s a first time for everything. “Or you could not be an asshole.” Nick stands up. And standing, he’s got at least four inches on Leddy. 

Leddy says, “What the _actual_ – ” 

“Hey, come on.” Kyle is at Nick’s elbow. “Leds is my friend. Leddy is great. You’re great. Nobody needs to be upset. Nick.” Kyle grabs his arm. Hard. “Please.” 

Nick looks at him. Kyle’s eyes fix on his. “Please,” he says again. “Please.” 

“It’s late. We gotta go,” Leddy says. His voice is lower, but no less insistent. 

“Okay.” Kyle still hasn’t let go of him. He looks over his shoulder at Leddy. “What about Nick?” 

Leddy’s eyes meet his. “You good to drive?” 

Nick nods. 

“There, see? Bjugs’ll be fine.” 

“I’ll be fine,” Nick echoes. The press of Kyle’s hands made all the fight go out of him. 

Kyle looks like he might be the one to protest, but instead he just swallows and turns back to Nick. “You said I can call you. You said we can hang out. You still want to, right?” 

Nick can see the flush still coloring Kyle’s cheeks, and Nick’s nerves are still jangled, his mouth still dry. “Yeah.” It feels weird to say all this under Leddy’s watchful eye, like trying to execute some exceptionally delicate maneuver in front of an audience. “I’ll call you.” 

Kyle’s mouth tips up into that small, secret smile. And his grip on Nick’s arm loosens, but the whole drive back, Nick remembers the warmth of his touch. 

He’s due back at Smitty’s, but he takes the long way back to Blaine. Nick has a curl of heat in his stomach, and a smile he can’t keep off his face, and he wants to keep it to himself. He doesn’t want to have to share or explain, just wants to hold it close. 

And with the highway empty in the small hours of the morning, he feels like the only person awake in the whole universe. The night feels vast and all-encompassing and like it was made just for him, like the light of all those ancient stars above him has traveled untold miles just to be here to light this moment for him, to make it dazzling and sharp and perfect. 

He pulls over at the dam, and cracks the windows of the car, even though the wind that whistles in is so cold it makes his eyes tear up, just to let in the burble and roar of rushing water. It’s crystal clear and pitch black, and still all around him. He pulls his hands into his sleeves and watches his breath grow white in the air. 

The stars gleam above him, raw and vivid, like something freshly cracked open, like’s he’s watching the universe explode, caught in freeze frame – a million possibilities streaming out from him in all directions. 

Nick is a small thing, his heart is one tiny point of heat in a black, frozen night. 

No matter what happens, those stars are always going to burn, that water is always going to rush over the dam, and if he stays here long enough the sun is always going to climb up the eastern edge of the world, reveal itself through the tangle of black branches that screen the sky. 

Something that’s been held very tight, for a very long time, unclamps in Nick’s chest. 

He’s due at Smitty’s, but the sun’s going to come up soon. And there’s something calming about being just a small piece of something so vast. Something soothing about how there’s always going to be newness. About the inevitability of renewal, even in the dark midwinter. 

Good things will happen. Good change will come. Even here, in the midst of all this shit. 

He breathes easier. Even though he’s still got at least half an hour left on the road, whenever he decides to leave; even though everything else he has to deal with is still out there, is still looming. 

Nick holds his hand, and he thinks about the few seconds that night that Kyle had held it. He pays close attention to that drop, that twist, that sudden hitch in his chest. 

He thinks: _worth the trip._

 

 

He’s out so late it’s early, so late that he texts Smitty to just meet him at his dad’s storage locker. Nick shows up red-eyed, running on nothing but an hour’s fitful rest in his car and the shitty gas station coffee that he stopped for on the way. 

He’s late, but when he rolls in, Smitty’s car isn’t there. Nick’s jaw tenses. If Smitty bailed on him, and Nick has to spend the day alone with his dad, Nick is going to kill him. 

He hears his dad before he sees him, the thud and shuffle of heavy objects being moved. And when Nick turns the corner, his dad already has the storage locker open. He’s in the middle of hauling a stack of pylons out, but he pauses to watch Nick approach. 

Nick avoids his gaze, he sets his coffee on the tailgate of the truck and ducks into the backseat to dig out a pair of work gloves. 

When he turns back, his dad hasn’t moved. He stands watching Nick until Nick starts to feel a prickle of something anxious crawl up his spine. Nick shrugs. “So, what did you want me to do?” 

His dad says, “where were you last night?” 

Nick looks away, reflexive, before he can stop himself. Stupid. “I was at Smitty’s.” 

His dad snorts. He tosses the pylons into a vague pile. “Like hell you were.” 

Nick freezes. And he can feel himself getting red. Adrenaline makes the back of his neck prickle. 

His dad fixes him with a look. “You don’t think I care enough to check up on you?” 

Nick’s shoulders are so tight now it’s hard to shrug. 

“I worry about you. Your mother worries about you.” When Nick doesn’t respond, he walks over. He stabs Nick once, a sharp finger straight to his chest. “You’re being a selfish little prick, you know?” 

That makes Nick look up. “ _I’m_ being selfish?” 

“Yeah. You are.” His dad shakes his head. “Do you know what it’s like to find out your son lied about where he was going to be? And then to not be able to find him?” 

Nick is going to kill Smitty. “What did Smitty tell you?” 

“You’ll have to ask him that, although that might be difficult seeing as I believe your friend is grounded fore the foreseeable future.” 

Or, Smitty is going to kill him. 

His dad folds his arms and stares at him, face dark, waiting. “Well?” 

Nick glares back. “Well _what_?” 

“I’m waiting for you to apologize.” 

Last year, Nick would have. Even a few months ago, when he wasn’t pushed this hard up against the edge, he might have. But instead, everything winds into a knot in his stomach. Fuck him. And fuck getting yelled at first thing on Saturday morning. And fuck all of this. “Fuck you,” Nick says. It comes out quieter then he meant, it was harder to get out than he thought it’d be. But he sets his jaw. He lifts his chin. 

His dad goes silent. White around the mouth and red everywhere else. Nick can see him hesitate, can see his mouth work as if he doesn’t know what to say. It’s almost funny. He can hardly blame his dad for not knowing what to do. Nick’s never been one to act out; Nick’s never been one to push. 

His dad finds his voice. “When you get home, you are not leaving the house again. Except for school, or – ” 

“Which house?” Nick snaps, and it feels like the words are coming from some other person entirely, or some unknown, heretofore untapped part of him. “You mean mom’s house?” 

His dad’s mouth snaps shut so hard and so fast his teeth click. 

“You don’t get to make the rules there.” Nick shakes his head. He’s trying to hold onto his composure, but his voice is starting to wobble. “You don’t live there anymore.” 

His father is red. His whole face, his throat down to where it disappears into his shirt. He yells now, for real. “Where the fuck is your head at? You’ve been all over the place. You’ve been half-assing things all season. You think this is all fun and games? You need to focus.” 

He’s yelling; he’s loud, and it’s almost satisfying, because it means Nick can yell back. “You fucked up your life. Don’t tell me what to do with mine.” Part of him is panicked, his heart rabbiting in his chest. But part of him is viciously thrilled by each and every word coming out of his mouth. “I’m old enough to make my own decisions.” 

His dad goes silent, but his eyes are furious, and they pin Nick in place. “And that’s the kind of person you’ve decided to be, then? A liar?” 

Nick is constantly being told to be good. To be nice. But every single person in Nick’s life who has ever told him to be nice is being a goddamn asshole right now. And somehow Nick is the one who is in the wrong. Nick’s the liar. 

Nick is so angry he can’t speak. So angry it’s like a hot, hard weight on his chest. “Fine then,” he manages. “I won’t lie. But that doesn’t mean you get any say over what I do.” He takes a breath. He has to force the air in. His hands are shaking. “I’m leaving.” 

“ _Nick_.” 

Nick can hear the command in his voice. _Sit. Stay. Heel. Down,_ Nick thinks, and in that moment he hates. It washes over him like a black tide, and he _hates_. Fully and completely. Without reservation. “You don’t get to tell me what to do.” He pulls the gloves off, one at time, pitches them with a sharp gesture at the ground. 

“I’m your father,” he says. 

Nick stares at him. “What does that even mean?” 

“Nick,” his dad says again, and he’s still angry, but now there’s a question in his voice as well. 

“I’m leaving,” Nick says again. Louder. And if his voice sounds steadier, it’s because he means it. 

 

 

Nick sprawls across the couch in the Raus’ basement, in what is now a familiar pose. He’s tired, head resting on his arm and two stacked pillows, one leg dangling off the side. But Kyle is easily entertained by the TV; he doesn’t need much in the way of conversation from Nick. So Nick is free to keep quiet, and watch him through half-closed eyes. Kyle is lying on the floor, as close up to the screen as he can get. 

Kyle’s pose, too, is now familiar. As is his devotion to the television. The Raus’ whole basement is familiar, because it’s where they hang out when Nick comes over. And Nick’s been coming over a lot. Nick shuffles the pillows under him. The couch is an old, battered thing. Coils sprung and stuffing leaking, it looks like it’s been through a war. 

Kyle had laughed when Nick made that observation. “No,” he said, shaking his head. “Just a grad student lounge, I think.” 

Nick studies the line of his jaw, caught in the blue flicker of the TV, with an intensity that would be embarrassing if Kyle wasn’t so thoroughly distracted. He likes Kyle, even if he hasn’t quite worked up the nerve to say it out loud. They haven’t talked about Jackson’s party, or how they’d sat in a dark room side by side, and almost, sort of, held hands. Kyle hasn’t even said anything about how frequently Nick is turning up at his house, although whenever Nick texts him, _want to hang out_ , he always says yes. 

The _at your place_ is implied. 

The drive down to Eden Prairie is a pain the ass. But Nick makes it anyway, because he likes Kyle, and he wants to see him. But also because it’s better than staying in Blaine. Nick didn’t get in trouble for going to Jackson’s party – if his dad said anything about it to his mom, then she hasn’t let on. But Nick thinks he hasn’t. He hasn’t asked, because he sees his dad at the rink now, and that’s it. And they talk about hockey, and that’s it. That’s the only the thing they talk about. 

Nick can still see him yelling in his spot in the corner of the rink. But it’s three hours a day, a couple times a week – he can deal, as long as he doesn’t have to think about it too much. Eden Prairie’s not a perfect escape – he still has to go back every night, but the time in the car is worth it to not have to listen to his dad ramble on about how Nick should be playing. Better than listening to people in school whispering behind his back. Better than being trapped at home with his mom, and the way her sentences trail off into nothing, with the overwhelming weight of sadness pressing down on everything. 

And if the last fight with his dad taught him anything, it’s that there’s not really anything his parents can do to stop him. So now, Nick just texts his parents, _I’m going over to Kyle’s,_ and there’s no _can I_ involved. 

Kyle’s parents aren’t around very much, and even when they are home, they don’t pay much attention. But there’s always food in the fridge, and the couch is comfortable, if battered, and no one complains if they get loud or yell at the TV. 

Sometimes Curt hangs out with them, although he and Kyle seem to have the sort of sibling relationship where they both prefer to ignore each other. But more often, if anybody’s over, it’s Leddy. 

Nick is willing to concede that Leddy is a decent guy. They’ve played in enough tournaments together or against each other, that Nick knows he’s got the skill to back up his constant, causal cockiness. He’s smart. He’s funny. But when Leddy is over, he gives maybe half his attention to whatever they’re watching on TV, and half will go towards looking back and forth between Kyle and Nick, staring like he’s trying to figure out a puzzle, or waiting for the other shoe to drop. 

He probably thinks he’s being subtle about it. 

He is not. 

What’s worse, is that Kyle will be distracted the whole time, too. Keeping one eye on Leddy, like Leddy’s gonna whip out a scorecard or something. Nick would despise him, except that Leddy also looks at Kyle with an overwhelming fondness. And he reacts to Kyle getting nervous by grabbing him, or flicking his hat, or poking him in the ribs, like you would a little brother. Kyle will laugh, and the way he looks at Leddy, it’s clear Kyle adores him. 

It’s hard to hate that. 

But Nick also thinks that he and Kyle might have gotten further than just smiling at each other, and sort-of-almost holding hands, if Leddy wasn’t also there so often, keeping an eye on exactly how close they were sitting, or how they were looking at each other, and listening in to what was said. 

So Nick prefers when Leddy doesn’t come over. 

It’s just Nick and Kyle tonight, which is always easiest, except that _The Bachelor_ is on tonight, which Nick hates. Onscreen, a man and woman are supposed to be on a date. Or, Nick supposes, whatever passes for a date when you’re being followed by at least three cameras. The couple walks hand in hand past a picture-perfect, flower-covered gazebo. The man pauses, one hand lifts her chin. He goes in for the kiss. 

Gross. Nick thinks he might vomit. 

The very last thing Nick wants to watch is a some fake couple faking romance, just to get some prize. They’re almost certainly going to break up as soon as the cameras are off. Nick shuffles deeper into the couch. His thoughts take a darker turn. Or maybe they _will_ stay together. Maybe they’ll stay together and make each other miserable. Maybe they’ll have a kid, who will then grow up to play hockey. And then maybe the guy will fuck random women he meets in hotel bars at his son’s hockey tournaments. And everybody will know about it. And maybe the girl will cry at night when she thinks everyone else in the house is asleep. Until you start to wish the guy would just please, please leave. And after he goes, you’ll wish he’d finally find some shitty bachelor apartment, and stop living in a hotel, so everyone can stop _pretending_ that it’s all temporary. So just something, _anything_ , can be settled – 

All at once, Nick’s chest hurts. His stomach twists into a hard knot, and he can taste bile. He really might throw up. Nick sits up and grabs the remote off the coffee table. He flips the TV off. 

Kyle looks back over his shoulder at Nick, startled. “Hey. I was watching that.” 

“You like terrible TV,” Nick says. 

Kyle frowns, offended. “It’s educational. You can learn stuff.” 

Nick doesn’t have the patience for this tonight. He rolls his eyes. “You cannot be serious.” 

Kyle’s expression says he can’t believe Nick thinks he might not be. “You can too. All kinds of stuff. Like,” he gestures at the now dark TV. “What counts as pretty, for a girl. And what sort of activities people like to do on dates. And how close you’re supposed to stand to other people when you’re talking to them. And – ” He stops, all at once and narrows his eyes at Nick. “You’re upset.” 

Nick tries to slow his breathing. He flips the hood of his hoodie up, like that might be some defense. Like it’s not a dead giveaway. “No.” 

“We don’t have to watch this.” Kyle hesitates, sounding increasingly unsure. “We can watch something else. We can watch whatever you want.” 

“I’m just – ” Nick does not want to get into this. The knot in his stomach tightens, and he really might puke, right here, in Kyle’s parent’s trash can. 

That’s going to be hard to explain. 

Nick can feel his heart thudding too hard and too fast in his chest, tastes sour, metallic saliva fill his mouth. He grips the arm of the couch. 

“Are you okay?” Nick can hear the rising note of concern in Kyle’s voice and it just makes everything worse – makes him feel like everything’s written on his skin, for Kyle and all the world to see. 

“Nick, are you – ” 

“Shut _up_.” Nick covers his face, heels of his palms pressing into his eyes. He pulls in a shaky breath. His skin feels hot under his hands. “Just be quiet.” He’s not going to cry. He’s not going to cry. He’s not. “Please.” 

Kyle doesn’t breathe another word. Nick manages another breath. Then two. Then he feels the couch dip next to him. But Kyle doesn’t touch him, and he still doesn’t make a sound. 

When Nick cracks an eye to look at him, Kyle’s bent forward, towards him, trying to get a glimpse of Nick’s face. His lips are pressed together so hard they’ve gone white. His eyes are round and worried. 

Nick swallows. He’s a little worried what his voice is going to sound like, but when he speaks, it just sounds gruff, not too shaky. “Sorry for yelling.” He says it mostly to Kyle’s wide, frightened eyes. 

Kyle shakes his head, tight and fast, like he doesn’t want Nick to think that’s what he’s upset about. 

Nick watches him a beat longer. “You can talk,” he adds. 

Kyle’s words rush out. “You don’t have to apologize. I didn’t think about – I didn’t mean to make you upset. I’m sorry.” 

“Kyle, you don’t – _you_ don’t need to apologize.” God, the pair of them. Nick shakes his head; there’s laughter on the tip on his tongue, which feels good, even if it is mostly nerves. 

“Do you want to talk about it?” Kyle’s voice is barely above a whisper. 

“No.” Nick’s voice, in contrast, comes out much too loud. He winces. 

Kyle doesn’t flinch, though. Kyle is still leaning in towards Nick, with his hands resting on his thighs, and that worried look still on his face. “Okay. If I can do anything, just – just tell me?” 

Like there’s anything Kyle could do. Nick almost laughs – because what is Kyle going to do? Wave a magic wand and make everything fine? Make Nick’s dad not a jerk and his mom not sad? Make Nick a better teammate and a decent friend and get him away the fuck from here? 

Except Nick doesn’t laugh. Because the look Kyle is giving him is so earnest – like if Nick did say he needed some magic wand, that Kyle would travel to the ends of the earth to get it. Like Nick really could ask him for the impossible, and Kyle would do anything to make it work. 

Nick’s breath hitches in his chest. Part of him thinks he’s really not a good enough person to deserve this. Part of him needs it so much he doesn’t care. “Can I just – ” He gestures at Kyle. 

It’s a vague gesture, and a vague question, and Kyle’s face makes a question. He straightens and looks down at himself, like he might be able to discover what Nick is gesturing at. Nick takes the opportunity to fold over, graceless as a toppled tree, exhausted as someone reaching the ribbon at the end of a marathon, and rest his head in Kyle’s lap. 

Kyle’s goes very still. After a moment, one of his hands very gingerly settles on Nick’s shoulder. 

Nick closes his eyes. 

The silence remains unbroken for a full twenty seconds. Nick counts off the _Mississippis_ in his head. In that time, he feels Kyle shifting, ever so slightly, and he hears him inhale to speak. He does it once, twice, but stays quiet after each. Finally, on the third try, Kyle finds the nerve to say whatever it is he wants to say. “This – I – this is, I know, maybe not the best time – ” Kyle stops. The hand he has resting on Nick’s shoulder flexes, and Nick hears him swallow. “But – can I ask a question?” 

Nick just hums. 

Kyle must take that a yes, because he proceeds, “this is like – ” His hand is tracing a very careful line along the seam of Nick’s sweater. “This, the way we’re sitting I mean – well, I’m sitting, and, and you’re sort of sitting – ” The nerves in his voice make it shake and stall for a moment, before Kyle takes another breath, and powers through to the end. “This is a thing people who are dating do. Or, like, flirting. Are we – are we doing that?” 

Nick rolls onto his back, head still in Kyle’s lap, and from here he can look right up at Kyle’s face. “I like you a lot,” Nick says. 

Kyle’s hand, the one that was resting on Nick’s shoulder, now floats awkwardly in the air. Kyle’s mouth makes a small O of surprise. 

He thinks maybe Kyle’s nervous enough for both of them, because Nick feels calm. He smiles up at Kyle. “I sort of thought you knew.” 

“I thought, I thought maybe – ” Kyle’s blushing. He frowns, lips stuttering like he’s having a hard time trying to work out what he wants to say. “But – I get a lot of things – like that – wrong. And, I didn’t want to ask. Because I didn’t want to be wrong.” Kyle smiles down at him, thin and unsteady. “I like you. I like being with you. Even when I know I’m supposed to be focused on hockey or practicing, or that I shouldn’t – sometimes I just want to be with you. I was so glad when you said you’d call me. I really like it when you come over, because – it just makes me feel happy when we talk.” Kyle cuts off all at once. He covers his face with his hands. “God. Sorry. That was – sorry.” 

There’s a prickling sensation of warmth climbing all over Nick’s skin. A light, uncomplicated feeling. It takes him a moment to recognize it as what it is: being happy. He’s feeling happy. Nick can feel a grin stretching across his face. He reaches up to tug one of Kyle’s hands away. And he doesn’t’ turn it loose; he holds on, smoothing his thumb across Kyle’s palm, feeling the warmth of his fingers as they curl through Nick’s. “You don’t – don’t apologize for saying you like me. Not when I just told you I like you.” 

“I know, but that was just, like.” Kyle gives him an exasperated look, blows out an exaggerated sigh. “Painfully awkward. I know it was. You can tell me.” 

“I like you,” Nick smiles up at him. “Even when you’re being awkward.” 

Kyle starts to grin back, very small, but very warm. 

“Especially when you’re being awkward,” Nick amends. He risks reaching his other hand up to touch Kyle’s cheek. “Do you have any idea what a relief it is to not be the only awkward person in the room?” 

Kyle laughs. His face is warm under Nick’s fingers. He brings his free hand down to touch Nick’s face in return. His fingers trace a careful path down Nick’s cheek, along the line of his jaw, so light and so cautious it tickles. Nick shivers. 

Kyle stills and meets his eyes. “Are we – is there, like, something specific we’re supposed to be doing? Now, I mean, now that we’re – ” He pauses. “Are we dating?” 

Nick grins at him. He rolls so he can reach out and snag the remote off the table. He passes it back to Kyle. “If you want, we can do exactly what we were doing before, except like this.” He nestles back down into place. Worse view of the TV from here, but Nick’s got no intention of moving. “And we can be dating, if you want to date?” He meant it to sound teasing, but it finishes soft. 

Kyle takes the remote from him. His look down at Nick is fond. “I’d like that. I like that plan.” 

Nick considers. “Except maybe no more of _The Bachelor_.” 

“Definitely not,” Kyle agrees. 

“Anything but _The Bachelor.”_

And pressed up this close, he can feel Kyle laugh. 

 

 

It really doesn’t change all that much about what they do. Except that Kyle sits that much closer to him on the couch, and being able to run his fingers through Kyle’s hair makes the terrible television shows Kyle likes to watch that much more fun. 

And he does enjoy Leddy’s slack-jawed expression, the first time Nick kisses Kyle goodbye in front of him. 

 

 

The worst kind of loss is the one that slips away at the last second. Against Lakeville, Blaine battled back in the third to tie it. And late, Nick had thought they were going to pull it out, carry the tie into overtime and be able to take a breath. 

Nick had thought they were going to be fine, and pulled up, and that’s when Lakeview scored to put the game away in the dying seconds of the third. 

With that, Blaine slips to lower in the standings than it’s been in a very long time. 

The locker room is quiet after. Not even Coach has much to say. “Practice tomorrow at four.” But he does stop on his way out of the room, to knock a fist against Nick’s shoulder and say, “Bad game for you, Bjugstad. Come back with your head on straight next time.” 

Nick keeps his eyes down. Nobody else says anything, but the silence feels deliberate. The room feels small, and all those eyes working so hard not to look at him, all those conversations that deliberately miss him, just make it feel smaller. 

Nick takes a slow, steadying breath, and reminds himself that there are other places, bigger places beyond this, and that he’s going to get out. The air in the locker room is too warm and rank with the smell of bodies and gear, but when the door at the end of the room cracks open as the guys start to leave, the colder air that leaks in feels like a reminder that that’s true. 

Nick closes his eyes. Sometimes it’s hard to remember how much he loves this game. It would be so much easier to quit. He could quit – and then he wouldn’t have to do summer school. He wouldn’t be pushing to finish a year early. He could sleep in on the weekends, and he wouldn’t have to feel the weight of all those eyes constantly on the back of his neck. 

He could just quit. 

But today is not forever, Nick reminds himself, and hockey is what’s going to get him out for real, for good. Nick pitches his gear into his bag haphazard, and hard enough to hear something snap. He winces. That’s going to be a problem – but later. Right now, Nick just wants to go home. At home, he can eat something and then pass out and then it will be tomorrow. 

Tomorrow, Kyle has a game, which means Nick won’t get to see him, but if they win, it means Nick will get a million happy texts from Kyle after the game. 

Eden Prairie’s been winning a lot. 

And tomorrow it will be one day closer to the day after tomorrow – and that _is_ a day he gets to see Kyle. Nick just has to make it through the next forty-eight hours or so of shit. And since they’ve gotten that phenomenally crappy loss out of the way, it means the worst is over. 

Nick blows out a long breath. Today is not forever. He can survive the next forty-eight hours. People have survived way worse. It’s kind of a Minnesota specialty. Gerry Spiess crossed the Atlantic alone in a homemade sailboat. Robert Cabana spent over 900 hours in space. Ann Bancroft was the first woman to reach the North Pole via sled and on foot. And Nick spares a moment to wonder what her life in Mendota Heights was like, that she looked around at the artic and thought: _yeah, this’ll do. This is an improvement._

Nick can do this. He grabs his gear and heads out. 

Hid dad is waiting for him in the parking lot, leaning up against one of the light poles. The air is so still, his breath seems to hang in front of him, in small, white puffs. He starts to move when Nick appears, but stiffly, like he’s been waiting. 

Nick watches the backs of the heads of his teammates and the dregs of the crowds as they walk towards their cars. He thinks about calling out. He looks at the line of black trees that line the parking lot, and he thinks about bolting. 

The sweep of headlights makes his dad’s face look seem pale, all the lines and shadows standing out. He shoves his hands down deep in pockets. “Hey, Nick.” 

Nick is frozen, rooted to the spot. The last of the crowd trickles past them, moving around Nick like a stream parting around a rock. Their footsteps fade fast in the dusting of snow on the ground. Nick swallows once, twice, before he finds his voice. “Hey.” 

His dad kicks at the pavement with the toe of his boot. “Give you a ride home?” 

Nick shakes his head. As irrational as it is, he thinks again about running. “I’ve got my car here.” 

His dad nods at that, slow. “I’ve called,” he says. “You haven’t answered.” 

Nick doesn’t answer that either. 

“I wanted to – I wanted to tell you that I got a place. Got an apartment. And that you’re welcome there any time.” 

There’s a sharp sort of cold building in Nick’s chest. He shifts under the weight of his bag. The strap digs into his shoulder, and he hitches it higher. He looks down at his hands, because it’s easier. They’re white. He hadn’t bothered to put his gloves on for the walk to the car. He didn’t think he’d be standing here. 

“Nick, I understand that you’re angry with me. But this is how things are going to be now.” Nick listens to the scuff of his father’s boot, a steady rhythm on the pavement. “I’m sorry for hurting you and your mother, but I still very much want to be a part of your life.” 

Nick looks at him. His dad’s gone still, frozen in the spill of lamplight. A face as familiar as breathing; the shadows falling on features that Nick saw every day of his life leading up to this year. Features Nick still sees in the mirror every morning. But the words don’t – he shakes his head. “You’re sorry?” 

His dad says, “I made mistakes.” 

That’s like a sharp, hot knife right to the chest. Nick studies the sky for a second. He can feel a bitter sort of laugh climbing up his throat. “You cheated on my mom by mistake? What? You slipped and fell and fucked some other woman by mistake?” 

“Nick – ” And now his dad’s tone has gone hard. Now he’s going to yell. 

His father closes his eyes. He takes a breath. “Yeah, I should have made better choices and I’m going to try to going forward. And yeah, I hurt your mom. “ He bites his lip, silent for a long second. “And I hurt you. And I will always be sorry for that. I love you. I want you to know that.” 

The bag on his shoulder feels about ten times heavier than it did a minute ago, and the ground feels like it’s listing and swaying under him. Nick’s not going to cry here. He’s not. He won’t. But his throat seizes and his eyes burn, and the cold air makes those unwanted tears hurt like fire. “I don’t care what you want,” he says, squeaking and rasping by the end, and he hates himself for giving himself away. Fury burns up through him, burning everything else away, and it’s such a perfect, breathless relief. “Fuck you.” 

“Nick.” The anger Nick wanted to hear isn’t there. Instead, his father’s voice quavers, like it just might break. 

Nick can’t breathe. Nick can’t see. “No.” So choked up, the word is almost coughed out. He swipes at the tears running down his face, humiliated. Furious. “I don’t want to listen to you. I don’t want to talk to you. I don’t want to see you. Stop calling me. Stop coming to these games.” 

“Nick – ” 

The ground has turned into quicksand under his feet. Nothing is solid anymore. He’s trapped here. Trapped by his voice and the weight of his look. By the dark. By the smallness of the world. With the desperate terror of a cornered animal, Nick thinks if he has to smash everything, if he has to burn down everything in a kamikaze run, just to survive this moment – he will. 

He throws his last card down on the table. “Stop coming or I’ll quit.” His voice shakes, but Nick doesn’t care anymore. “I swear I’ll quit hockey.” 

His dad doesn’t say anything else. 

 

 

Nick gets on the highway and keeps going. Panic running hot under his skin. Death grip on the wheel. He drives past the exit for home, following no direction except away. 

His thoughts spin in frantic, jittering circles. What if his dad calls his bluff? What if he does have to quit hockey? What if he’s stuck? What if he stays here, and he never gets out. He can hear his phone going off in the passenger seat. He doesn’t answer. He doesn’t pick a destination. He lets his foot get heavy; he goes a little bit faster. The lines on the pavement blur. He drives away from traffic, away from the well-lit roads; he makes the dark a tunnel that surrounds his car. 

He thinks about his dad standing in that broken light. His dad who acted like Nick’s words hit him with a physical force, and the waver in his voice, and how that was worse – so much worse than the yelling. Worse than his anger. 

It’s like there’s a tide in him. Something pushing up and through him. His skin is too tight. The world is too small. There’s a noise like gasping, like a moan. It doesn’t sound human. But it’s welling out of his throat all the same. 

Nick pulls over with one hard jerk. In the middle of nowhere. He’s not sure where. He rests his forehead against the steering wheel. Whatever’s outside is too dark and too blurry to see. Nick cuts the headlights. He kills the engine. 

He makes himself take a breath, because he is going to get out of here. He’s going to finish school early, and get drafted, and then he’s going to go far, far away from here. That should make him feel better, but it doesn’t. It cuts. Sharp and horrible. _I hate you for making me hate this place_ , Nick thinks. Although, that’s not quite fair. _I hate you for making me want to leave all these things and places that I love so much._

He holds onto the wheel, tight, so his hands won’t shake. It’s late. He should go home. His dad is pissed. His mom is probably worried. Nick glances in the rearview mirror, and sees himself red-eyed and pale looking back. She’d be more worried, Nick thinks, if he came home like this. He looks at his phone. Nick is an asshole. Nick is a selfish asshole. Nick makes the lives of everyone he touches worse. 

Because Nick is an asshole, and because just looking at her missed calls makes his chest go tight, Nick doesn’t call her back. He swipes over to Kyle’s name instead. 

There’s a text from Kyle that just reads, _ouch._ And a series of emoji to convey the intensity of his feelings. 

Nick wipes his face with the back of his hand. _I had a rough night,_ he replies. 

_I saw the score_ , Kyle sends back, right away, like he’d been waiting. 

Nick stares through the windshield. At the dark _._ The rink and the game seem impossibly far behind him. _I got in a fight with my dad_ , he writes. Then adds, _I make everyone around me miserable._

_Come over_ , Kyle says, and, _that’s not true._

Nick shakes his head, even though there’s no one to see. _it’s late. we both have school. you have a game tomorrow._

_COME OVER_ , Kyle says. 

And really, what else is Nick going to do? 

 

 

He arrives at the Rau house late enough that he doesn’t want to risk waking anyone. He taps, light as he can, at the front door. 

Kyle answers the door almost immediately, barefoot, dressed in pajama pants and bundled in a hoodie. He pulls Nick inside and shuts the door and wraps his arms around him tight. 

Nick holds onto him, too. 

“Did you eat?” It’s only half-audible, mumbled against Nick’s chest. 

Nick shakes his head. 

Kyle pulls back and looks up at him. “Your face is all red.” He sounds worried. 

Nick swallows. “I had a rough night.” He has to catch himself, shut down that line of thought before he loses it all over again, in the Rau’s front hall. 

Kyle just nods, and takes him by the hand, and leads him back into the kitchen. He flips the light on. 

“Are your parents asleep?” Nick asks, voice low. 

“They’re at a conference.” Kyle directs him to a seat at the kitchen table and all but pushes him down into the seat. While Kyle moves around the kitchen, Nick pulls out his phone. He texts his mom _I’m fine, really. I’m sorry. I’ll be home tomorrow,_ and then turns the thing off. 

Kyle sets food in front of him. A glass of milk. A plate of peanut butter cookies. “Curt made them for Home Ec.” And then adds, begrudgingly, “but they’re okay.” 

He watches Nick eat, silent, but with a worry line creasing his forehead the whole time. When Nick finishes, Kyle asks, “do you want anything else? We have frozen pizza. Or I could make mac and cheese. Or – ” He turns, to gesture or move away, to get something else from the fridge. 

Nick can’t stand the thought of him moving out of reach. He catches Kyle’s wrist, pulls him back. 

Kyle looks startled, and he blinks down at Nick’s hand, wrapped tight around his wrist. Then he reaches out, very slow with his other hand, and lays it against Nick’s jaw. 

Nick leans in. 

Kyle inhales, sudden and sharp. 

His mouth is slow to respond under Nick’s. He feels stiff. But when Nick starts to pull away, Kyle catches him and draws him back. 

His mouth feels small under Nick’s. Nick drags his lips across Kyle’s cheek. He kisses his jaw. The space under his ear. Nick feels him shiver. 

This is still pretty new, and even just this feels overwhelming. Nick can feel the rush of his own heartbeat, and Kyle’s pulse speeding in his wrist. They rest for a moment, cheek to cheek. Breathing. 

Kyle touches Nick’s face, slow and deliberate. His hand still rests against Nick’s jaw and his fingertips brush patterns across his skin. Kyle is watching him so closely. 

He’s so warm under Nick’s hands. Nick kisses him again. Kyle’s mouth opens under his. He can feel Kyle’s lips and his teeth and his tongue. The rise and fall of Kyle’s chest gets more pronounced. He presses further into Nick’s space, hands dropping to skate across Nick’s shoulder’s, to link behind his neck. 

Nick’s the one to break away this time, trying and failing to catch his breath, with is heart battering against his ribs and his face flushing hot. Kyle’s lips follow his for a moment, are still parted, shiny and wet. He makes a small noise, a hitching, barely audible gasp. 

Nick combs his fingers through Kyle’s hair, and Kyle’s eyes fall closed. He sways, leaning into the touch. 

Nick watches his throat work. The jumping pulse under his skin. He wants his hands up under Kyle’s shirt. He wants to touch skin. He wants to pull him hard up against him, soothe this needy, trembling thing within him. 

But this is as far as they’ve ever taken things. His mouth on Kyle’s mouth, but everyone mostly upright. Everyone still properly dressed. 

Nick is still in the kitchen chair. Kyle is standing between his legs, and he moves closer. 

Nick kisses him again, and again, and he looses track. He has a rough hold on Kyle’s hips, and Kyle is holding Nick’s face, crowding into his space. Nick kisses his jaw. Kisses the thump of his pulse and lets his teeth graze Kyle’s skin. 

Kyle makes a noise – surprised. Loud. His fingers clutch and he trembles in Nick’s hands. 

Nick keeps his mouth right up against his skin. He whispers, even though Kyle said his parents weren’t home. Even though the kitchen is dark and still around them. “Do you want to – we could – ” 

He’s not sure if Kyle hears him. Or, he’s not sure that Kyle understands. Kyle’s eyes have fallen closed again, and he’s taken a tight hold of Nick’s shoulders. Nick swallows, shifts. “We don’t have to – ” 

Kyle opens his eyes and looks right at him, a burning focus. “Yes,” he says. “I want to. Yes.” 

> ` (It seems so silly in retrospect, but you were so worried he would know when he touched you. Just know somehow. You think of all the times you made Leddy swear up and down that you were normal, that no one could tell by looking, by touch – it meant so much to you to be touched – ) `

Kyle’s room is orderly. Books stacked neatly on the desk. Jacket over the back of the chair. The bed made. 

Kyle looks up at him. 

It’s easy to get his hands up under Kyle’s hoodie, up under his shirt. Kyle lets him work it up and over his head. And he pulls Nick’s off in exchange. He holds onto Nick, and when he sits back on the bed, he pulls Nick down after him simply by virtue of not letting go. Nick stretches out next to him. Kyle’s ribs rise and fall under his hand. Nick can hear all the small sounds of him shifting, swallowing, the hitch when Nick kisses him. Kyle’s hands roam his shoulders and his back, and he links his hands behind Nick’s neck, fits himself up tighter against Nick. 

Nick can hear the rasp of his breathing, rough and unsteady. 

Kyle’s hips are working up against his. Nick gets both arms around him and holds him, pulling him in tight, tugging Kyle harder up against him. His bare skin feels good up against Nick’s, feels huge and heady. They could do this, he thinks, just like this, Kyle rubbing up against, Kyle between his legs. Nick presses back against him, runs his hands over skin, over the feel of muscle. He’s just stealing sips of air when can, and everything else is the wet heat of Kyle’s mouth, and the way the room smells, like sex and sweat, and the complaint of the mattress springs, and the tremors that are starting to move through Kyle’s body. 

Kyle gasps out a breathy, wordless sound. He breaks away from Nick’s mouth, hiding his face against Nick’s throat. Nick can feel all his blood under his skin, rushing and pulsing, and the need collecting in his groin, and it hurts – it almost hurts to stop. But Nick can feel Kyle shivering now, hard enough it might really be a shake. 

Nick makes his hands uncurl, and he touches Kyle’s shoulder, gentle as he can. He drags in a breath. He makes himself let it out slow. “Are you okay? We can stop,” he offers. “If you want, we can stop.” 

Kyle doesn’t answer. He groans, and Nick can feel him press his face harder into Nick’s throat. 

“Let’s stop.” Nick runs a hand across Kyle’s shoulders. He blows another long breath up at the ceiling. “Or slow down.” 

Kyle breathes against his throat. When he finally lifts his head, his face is red, his eyes unfocused. He opens his mouth, shakes his head. “I didn’t know it was going to feel like this. I just – ” He stops, swallows and tries again. “I just – ” He shakes his head, looking dazed. His eyes close. 

“Hey.” Nick wraps his arms back around him. “Easy.” 

Kyle’s breathing in a hard, fast rasp. He speaks without opening his eyes. “It feels like – like pressure. Like weight. I didn’t know it would feel like this.” Nick can feel him, hard up against his leg, and Kyle’s hips shift against Nick’s, and his fingers scrabble for a moment against Nick’s skin while he tries to catch his breath “I just – I need. I need something.” He opens his eyes. “Does it always feel like this?” 

He’s looking at Nick like there’s no doubt in his mind that Nick has the answers. Like he’s trusting Nick to get it right. It sits huge and frightening and amazing on Nick’s chest. Nick pushes his fingers through the damp hair at Kyle’s temple. “What do you need?” 

“I don’t know.” Kyle groans again. He presses against Nick again, and Nick can feel him, hard and hot through the thin fabric of his pants. “Everything is so much. I didn’t know it would be this much. I need.” His voice catches, hiccups. “I just need.” 

Nick runs a hand down his side. Across that flushed skin. Kyle’s hips lift again to his touch. 

“I got you,” Nick says, voice thick, words half-caught in his throat. “I got you.” Nick pushes at him, urging him onto his back. 

Kyle sighs and goes. 

He hisses out small gasps when Nick touches him. Something that starts out sounding like Nick’s name and fades and breaks apart into mumbled pieces. He grinds back against Nick’s palm, and it makes Nick go hot, makes his pulse roar in his ears. Kyle’s flushed red, and he keeps trying to cover his face before he gives up, and lets his arms fall back against the pillow. He breathes in short little sips through his mouth in time to his hips lifting into Nick’s touch. Then he turns his face to bite at the inside of his arm and his breathing becomes a tight whine. “I got you,” Nick says again, and Kyle comes in his hand. 

Kyle’s breathing slows. He blinks up at Nick, and smiles, a loose sleepiness creeping into the line of his mouth. 

Nick leans down to kiss him. “Okay?” 

Kyle pushes himself up on his elbows. He blinks down at himself and then at Nick, looking dazed. “Yeah?” It almost sounds like a question. 

Nick grins. “Yeah?” 

Kyle takes a teasing swipe at him. He’s still red. He reaches for Nick, and Nick comes in close. Nick kisses his cheek, and then holds still, breathing against Kyle’s temple. 

Kyle shifts in his arms. He reaches a tentative hand to touch Nick’s hip. Nick tilts up into it, and Kyle’s touch grows firmer, a steady stroke over Nick’s skin. “So,” Kyle’s voice goes speculative. “Can I?” 

“Oh,” Nick says, moving to accommodate. “Yeah.” 

“Yeah?” Kyle’s tone is teasing, but his fingers are already touching him, already starting a progressive, detailed investigation. 

Nick starts to laugh, but he gets distracted, loses focus. The places Kyle is touching him are bright and vivid. He kisses Kyle instead, while he pushes up into his grasp. 

Kyle makes a pleased noise. Nick can feel him smile, right up against Nick’s mouth. 

He comes quicker than he wanted. Quick enough, maybe, to feel self conscious about. But Kyle doesn’t seem to care. 

Kyle tucks himself close to Nick’s side after, resting his head in the hollow of Nick’s shoulder, as though that space had been made for him. 

_Mine,_ Nick thinks, curling around him, a powerful warmth in all the ways they fit together. _And I’m his._

 

 

In the morning, Kyle stays close to his side, seeming pleased with Nick’s arm around him, even after they go downstairs, even as it makes the process of packing lunch more ungainly. Nick watches him work and keeps his hands on him, and Kyle grins down at what he’s doing, warm and pleased, and maybe a little smug. 

“Oh.” 

Nick looks up to see Curt. Freshly showered, and dressed for school, but looking surprised. Curt says, “I didn’t know you were here.” 

Probably, Nick thinks, because you weren’t supposed to. Nick looks at Kyle. 

Kyle glances up at Curt and then away. He shoves a sandwich into each of two bags. He pushes one towards Curt. “Nick spent the night.” His tone plays this off like it’s not a big deal. 

Curt looks from Kyle to Nick and back again. “We’re not supposed to have people over when mom and dad aren’t here. You’re going to get in trouble.” 

Kyle’s hands rest careful and still on the counter in front of him. “Not,” His voice has an edge, “if you don’t tell them.” 

Curt studies him, blank-faced for a long moment, and then rolls his eyes and makes a production of shrugging, like he’s actively deciding not to care. “Whatever. Just don’t make us late.” 

School. Shit. Nick is going to be so incredibly late. Kyle is grumbling something inaudible down at his hands, and Nick squeezes his shoulder. “I should go, too.” 

“Yeah.” Kyle looks up at him, and his face clears. He keeps his head tilted up towards Nick’s, and his expression is expectant. Waiting. 

Kyle is Nick’s boyfriend. Who he spent the night with last night. That’s pretty cool. 

That’s very cool. 

Nick leans down to kiss him goodbye and is rewarded with Kyle’s grin and another eye-roll from Curt. 

 

 

By the time he pulls into his own driveway, he has a text waiting for him: _I’m happiest when I’m with you._

Nick grins down at his phone, not caring if he looks like an idiot. Then he glances up, and looks at the front door. And braces himself. 

His mother is sitting at the kitchen table. She has clearly been waiting. 

Nick starts on the offensive. “I’m sorry,” he says. Quick. A test run to try to find out how bad things really are. 

She just nods, slow. Then she lowers her head, supporting the weight of it with fingers pressed to her temples, and doesn’t say anything. 

Bad. 

“I am sorry,” Nick repeats, more adamant. He pulls out the chair next to her and sits down. 

“You can’t just – you can’t just not come home, Nick.” Her voice is so tired it sounds raw. Her head still rests in his hands. 

Nick worries at his lip. “Dad wanted to talk to me after the game.” 

“I know,” she says. 

“I was upset.” 

“I know.” 

Nick swallows. “I was upset, and so I went over to my boyfriend’s house.” 

She looks up at that. She meets his eyes. “I didn’t know you had a boyfriend.” 

Nick traces designs on the table. “You’ve met Kyle.” He doesn’t mean it to come out quite as defensive as it does. 

“Kyle’s your boyfriend.” 

Nick nods. 

She sighs. She folds her hands, rubs her thumb across a knuckle. Nothing so obvious as rubbing the spot where her rings used to be – just tired hands, moving restlessly and trying to soothe an ache. “Does he make you happy?” Her voice is quiet, honestly curious. 

Nick blushes at the question. “Yes,” he says. 

“Good.” One of her hands reaches for his. “That’s what I want for you. I want you to be happy.” 

She looks at him with such an ache. Something so raw in her expression, it takes Nick a moment to notice she has started to cry. Like she knows – and of course she knows – how very unhappy Nick has been. The kitchen feels airless. Nick swallows, or tries to swallow, around the sudden lump in his throat. He can feel himself crying and it’s so hard – why does it have to be so hard? He uses his shirt to wipe his face, and her hold on his hand tightens. 

“I want to go,” he says. His voice breaks, like the words have been waiting so long, they’ve become hard to say. He swallows. “I want to go to UM early. I want to date Kyle, and I don’t want to see dad, and I want to go.” 

She holds his hand for a long time, while they both try to get themselves together. “Okay,” she says. “Okay.” 

 

 

That spring, Blaine doesn’t make the state tournament. But Nick gets an offer anyway, and signs his letter of intent with Minnesota. Nights that he can, he spends with Kyle, and they whisper back and forth about the University of Minnesota, and all the great things Nick’s going to do once he’s there. 

“You’ll come to my games, right?” Nick asks. 

“Of course.” Kyle murmurs his answers right into Nick’s skin, where they’re still pressed together, in those fleeting moments when they can be. 

“And – I’ll have a dorm room.” 

Kyle grins, like he know exactly what that means. 

“And,” Nick rolls and pulls Kyle after him, so he can look up at his face. “The year after – you should come. I’m gonna need a winger.” 

If Kyle’s smile flickers, if his mouth goes tight, Nick chalks it up to nerves. “Wouldn’t that be wonderful,” Kyle says, twining his arms around Nick’s neck, and bringing his mouth back to Nick’s, grinning like he’s imagining it. “Wouldn’t that be great.” 

Nick’s father moves into his apartment on Cedar street. 

Nick doesn’t have plans to visit. He doesn’t quite have a settled life, and he certainly doesn’t have a perfect one. But what he does have is a spot at the University of Minnesota waiting for him, and a boyfriend. 

It’s spring again, and it feels like a start. 

> ` (You knew. You knew it wouldn’t last. But it still breaks your heart, how much you wanted it to.) `

“Hey.” 

Most of the guys barely look up as Nick walks into Leddy’s basement. Suds still narrows his eyes but that’s about it, which, really, is a testament to how far they’ve come. 

Or maybe it’s just that the early summer nights are just warm enough to make everyone lazy. Kyle makes room for him on the couch and then drops back into place. Nick puts an arm around him, and then looks, because Kyle feels stiff against his side. Nick nudges him, and Kyle gives him a tight smile in response. 

Nick looks around, but everything else seems normal. Leddy at the other end of the couch, sitting with elbows resting on knees, crouched over his phone. A good portion of Eden Prairie’s team scattered about the room, waiting for someone to come up with an idea of what to watch or what to do, or where to go that night. 

Nick clears his throat. “So what’s up?” 

Leddy looks up, grins a little. “Rumor is they’re going to come out with the long list for the Hlinka tournament today.” He raises his eyebrows at Nick. “Ready to kick the world’s ass?” 

International tournaments: where all old enemies become friends. Nick grins back. “For sure. So what, though? We just gonna sit here all night while you refresh your phone?” 

“Naw.” Leddy sets the phone aside and flips the TV on. “Just killing time before Archer’s on.” 

Nick threads his fingers through Kyle’s hair while they watch, rubs the nape of his neck. Kyle stays close up against him, but he stays quiet. And even in the uncertain light of the screen, Nick can tell he’s not smiling in response to any of Archer’s wit. Nick squeezes the back of his neck. “You okay?” He asks, low. 

Kyle looks up. “Yeah, just – ” He looks like he’s searching for an answer. Or trying to find a way to say something he doesn’t want to say. He looks nervous. 

About the Hlinka maybe, Nick thinks. He can see Leddy still sneaking glances at his phone. Leddy’s a lock to make the team. So is Nick, if he’s being honest. But it’d be a real long shot for Kyle to make the invite list, even with how far he’s come. And it’d probably be tough to watch both of them go – to have to be happy for them and be disappointed, all at the same time. Nick would have a hard time with that, anybody would. “It’s okay,” Nick murmurs. “We don’t have to talk about it, if you don’t want.” 

Kyle heaves a sigh. His curls tighter to Nick’s side. 

Lana is berating Sterling onscreen when Leddy sits bolt upright. “It’s up,” he says. 

“Well, what’s it fucking say?” Suds calls. 

But Leddy doesn’t respond. Leddy is staring at the screen of his phone, his mouth hanging open. 

Nick snags the phone away from him, and before Leddy can protest, holds it so they can all see. 

Leddy’s name is on the list. 

And so is Nick’s. 

And so is Kyle’s. 

“Holy shit,” Nick breathes. He reaches a hand out for Kyle, but he doesn’t find one reaching back. Nick tears his eyes away from the screen to look at him. 

Kyle is sitting absolutely, perfectly still. He’s looking part Nick. He’s looking at Leddy. 

Leddy is staring back at him. 

Nick reaches out, shakes Kyle’s shoulder. “This is great. Kyle, we all could get to play together. We’re gonna play for Team USA.” He can feel his face pulling into a smile. 

But Kyle doesn’t react. 

A twist of anxiety curls through Nick’s stomach. “Kyle?” 

Kyle swallows. He drags his gaze from Leddy to Nick. His mouth trembles. And then he crumples, arms wrapping around himself. Trying to hide his face. Knees half drawn up like he’s trying to disappear, and makes a choking gasp of a sob. 

Hot, bewildered panic runs under Nick’s skin. “What’s wrong?” 

“Kyle,” Leddy says, and his voice breaks. 

Kyle looks up, at Leddy, at Nick. His eyes are red. For one moment, everyone in the room is perfectly still – and then Kyle bolts. He’s up, out the door, and gone. 

Nick looks to Leddy, who folds over, pressing his hands to his mouth, like he’s just seen something terrible. 

“What the fuck?” Nick says, but there’s no response. Leddy doesn’t even – fuck it. Nick takes off after Kyle. He hears Leddy’s belated call after him, but he ignores it. 

Kyle’s not in the house, but his car’s still parked out front. So at least he’s not driving. At least he can’t be far. Nick catches a flash of movement, two yards over. He takes off. 

Nick’s heart thuds in his throat. He calls out once, twice, but Kyle doesn’t stop. Nick’s faster than him, though, he gains ground quickly, and he catches hold of Kyle’s shirt, tackles him down. They hit the earth in a tumble and Nick wraps his arms around him, holds him tight to his chest. 

Kyle struggles against him. A fist thumps against Nick’s chest, but then he goes still, all the fight bleeding out of him, all at once. He moans, and there in the shadow of some stranger’s house, beneath an overhang of ivy, he slumps against Nick’s chest. Kyle moans again, long and low, like something broken. He shakes in the circle of Nick’s arms, and Nick holds him. He tucks Kyle’s head under his chin and holds him tight until the shake becomes just a tremor, and the moan just quiet, unsteady gasps. 

Nick closes his eyes. The air smells like earth and grass and the thick, sweet scent of honeysuckle. “What’s wrong?” It’s hard to keep his voice steady, when he can still feel the rise and fall of Kyle’s chest going too fast and too hard. It’s hard to quiet the panic in his blood. 

Kyle shakes his head. 

“Kyle.” Nick takes a long, steadying breath. He loosens his grip, careful, one hand at a time, like Kyle might still bolt. “What’s wrong?” 

Kyle pulls in an unsteady breath. His head thumps back against Nick’s chest. “I can’t go.” 

Nick wraps his arms further around him. “Why not?” 

“I just can’t.” His voice breaks on the last word. His shoulders hitch. 

Nick frowns. Kyle’s skin feels flushed under his hands. He tips Kyle’s face up, and it’s wet, eyes shining in the dark. “They’ll help you with travel costs,” Nick says. “If that’s what you’re worried about. And you can totally play at that level. I’ve seen you play at that level.” 

Kyle’s face crumples again. “No. You don’t get it. I can’t go, I’m not allowed to go.” There’s heat seeping into his words now, and his fingers take a tight hold of Nick’s shirt. Kyle takes another stuttering breath. “I can play for my high school, and I can _maybe_ play for a local college, but that’s it. That’s as far as I’m allowed to go. Anything else would be too much attention.” 

He’s not making any sense. “But you’re better than that.” Nick tries to make him meet his eyes. “Kyle, you’re better than that.” 

Kyle shakes his head. “I can’t.” 

“Why?” 

When he speaks again, it’s so quiet Nick almost can’t hear him. “I’m not allowed to tell you.” 

The cold of the earth beneath them is seeping into Nick, sweat cooling on his skin. He shivers. “I don’t understand.” 

Kyle swallows. He opens his eyes and looks at Nick like the whole world has ended. “I’m not allowed to tell anyone unless it’s an emergency.” 

Nick’s chest hurts. “Kyle, you’re upset. That’s an emergency to me.” 

Kyle turns that heartbroken look on Nick again. He’s thinking, clearly considering something so hard it would be funny, under any other circumstances. He sniffs. “The parameters of emergency are rather poorly defined.” 

Nick gathers his face in both his hands. “Tell me.” 

* * *

 


	2. Leddy, an interlude

* * *

 

> ` (This is where Nick Leddy would say the story began, if you asked him. This is the part of the story that took place before you were awake. But it’s important, so listen anyway.) `

The house at the end of the block in the neighborhood Nick Leddy lived in when he was fifteen years old had (and still, presumably, continues to have, since it’s the kind of neighborhood where not much changes) a three car garage. This is important because a three car garage necessitated a wide expanse of a driveway. 

So maybe, if the original builders of this house hadn’t valued garage space so highly, or if they had chosen pebbles or gravel instead of smooth, even concrete, or if Nick Leddy hadn’t been so into skateboarding that year, none of this would have happened. 

It depends on what sort of person you are: do you believe all those tiny chances had to line up just right, like a great, multivariate slot machine? Or the sort that believes all this would have happened anyway, that fate would have found a way to unwind its thread just exactly as planned? 

> ` ( _What sort of person_ , you say. What a joke.) `

Nick Leddy _was_ into skateboarding that year, and the allure of that concrete expanse brought him to that house. Gravity brought him down, and momentum + inertia sent the skateboard jetting out from under him, straight into the fender of the car parked at the curb. 

The aerodynamic, designed-for-fuel-efficiency-but-not-endurance fiberglass is what ensured there was a large dent. 

Nick Leddy contemplated the car. And then he contemplated his mother, Laura’s, face. And _her_ mother’s face, and the great, long line of stiff upper lips, strong chins, and searching eyes that had eventually produced him. 

Nick Leddy sighed. 

Stupid. What was even the point of having a three car garage if you parked on the street? 

Nick Leddy knocked, and that is how he met Dr. Rau. 

 

 

See, lots of little things had to happen – she could have sent him away. She could have not answered. She could have said, “Insurance will cover it, kid. Scram.” 

But what she did say was this, “Good morn – oh, _shit_ , can you hold the grounding cable?” 

 

 

Later, she said. “Carol. Carol is fine. Unless you’re one of those children who have been raised not to be informal with adults, that’s fine, I suppose, if you want little automatons.” 

Nick Leddy said, “I’m Nick, but everybody calls me Leds. I’m sorry about the car – ” 

She said, “Don’t drop the grounding cable.” 

Leds said, “Is this safe?” 

And she said, “As long as you don’t drop the grounding cable, it’s perfectly safe.” 

 

 

Still later than that, 

> ` (although still while you were asleep. This is all still long before you opened your eyes), `

she said she was a professor of bionics and organic engineering, and that that was why the garage was filled with wires and cables, and a strange, coffin-shaped vat, and a slew of meters and devices that beeped and whirred out of sync and out of tune with one another. 

“Well. That’s not quite true. That bit is Ted’s.” She pointed a bench in the corner, holding just a soldering iron and a pile of green and black circuit boards. “But he’s a computer scientist, and you know how they feel about wet work.” 

“Hand me the copper wire,” she said. “Not – _no_ – the other copper wire.” 

 

 

For a long time, Leds got stuck holding things and doing data entry. 

“You’ve got to break students down before you can build them up,” Carol said. 

Ted said, “Oh, really? I seem to recall you, as a grad student, saying – ” 

“Enough of your nonsense, please,” she said, in a tone like she was quoting something. They both smiled, the quiet, matched sort of smiles of a pair that has been through decades, three graduate degrees, two continents, two tenure reviews, and umpteen grant renewals. 

 

 

But data entry was boring, so Leds wandered back towards the very furthest, very darkest, and most frequently beeping corner of the garage. And when he saw the hand sticking up out of the coffin-shaped vat, covered in gelatinous goo, he screamed. 

 

 

“This is Curt,” Ted said, patting Leds’ shoulder comfortingly. “It stands for – ” 

“No one cares what it stands for.” Carol had both arms immersed to the elbow. She looked up at Leds’ white face and winced. “It’s just a synthetic buffering gel.” She held up a dripping hand for Leds to see. 

Leds shrank back. 

“It’s okay to be creeped out,” Ted said, still patting. “Lots of people are.” 

Leds frowned. “I’m not creeped out,” he insisted, and edged closer to the vat. He looked inside. A boy, curled and sleeping, submerged in goo. “He looks my age.” 

Carol looked thoughtful. “Not far off, actually.” 

Leds continued to look. “Can he play hockey?” 

There were never enough kids. Not enough good ones anyway. And if you’re building human robots in your garage, he thought, you might as well have them do something useful. 

 

 

Curt could play. But not well. Playing hockey well takes time and energy and repetition. He could _do_ all the things, Leds discovered, but he had to be directed to do it every single time. It was exhausting. 

“He doesn’t _want_ to play enough, Leds said. “He has to _want_ to do it.” 

Carol frowned at Ted, and Ted raised one of his bushy eyebrows back at her, a whole silent conversation happening just above Leds’ head. 

Carol tapped a finger against her mouth. “Likes and dislikes and motivations are set by weighting neural gateways and reward pathway defaults. Something that complex – ” 

“But it wouldn’t have to be,” Ted said. “You start with a set of learning rules, set those free – ” he walked his fingers through the air, “ – to be influenced by the environment. That’s the beauty of complexity theory – that a simple set of rules, plus a random walk, can produce something as complex as human behavior.” 

“Human-mimicking,” Carol corrected. 

“Well, yes, in this case,” Ted agreed. “But it goes for people as well.” 

“Not according to – ” 

“No one _cares_ what that old windbag thinks.” It had the tone of a very old argument. 

Leds cleared his throat. “So can we make another one? Like Curt, but he wants to play hockey?” 

Carol met Ted’s eye again. “It would certainly settle a couple of very old questions.” 

“I don’t know that an android has ever been designed or engineered specifically for sport before.” And there was a very specific light, the spark of a new challenge in both their eyes. 

 

 

“He has to want it,” Leds said. “That’s the most important thing. He has to be able to play, but more than anything he has to want to learn and get better.” 

Ted nodded, and then sat back, pushing his magnifying glass away. “We do have to be careful here – if he’s too good, we’re going to risk drawing the attention of governing bodies. We don’t want to get in trouble because we tried to pass an android off at the Olympics.” 

Carol snorted. “That’s an easy fix. We just make him short.” 

 

 

One year and thirteen days later, Ted said, “Bio-Robotic + Added Drive.” He nodded. “Simple, self-explanatory. BRAD. Brad.” 

All three of them stared down at his face. Carol frowned. “He doesn’t look like a Brad, though.” 

Ted peered at her over his glasses. “No? What’s he looks like, then?” 

Carol took another long look. “Kyle,” she proclaimed. 

Kyle woke up. He coughed and took a breath, looked around and looked right at Leds. “Prompt?” 

Leds swallowed. “Your name is Kyle.” 

Kyle nodded. “My name is Kyle.” 

* * *

 


	3. Nick, Part 2

* * *

 

“I wasn’t born,” Kyle says, a tremor in his voice, fingers still clutching Nick’s shirt. “I was built. I mean, I’m all – I’m just like you, except I have a synthetic nervous system.” He swallows. His eyes are wide looking at Nick. “Nick. Nick, please say something.” Kyle reaches for his hand. 

Nick looks down, at Kyle’s hand wrapped around his. Even sitting, he feels unsteady. The earth feels slightly off kilter underneath him. His voice sticks in his throat, and the words come slow. “You’re an android.” He has to pause. He has to take a breath. “You’re a robot.” 

“I’m not a robot,” Kyle frowns. “Your fucking _Roomba_ is a robot. I was just – engineered. I’m almost all bioware – you’ve touched me, we’ve – ” He drops his eyes and cuts the sentence short, like maybe it’s not the best idea to bring up all the ways they’ve touched. He adds, softer, “it’s only my nervous system is – ” He shrugs. “Platinum. Palladium. A couple of the rare earths, gallium, copper, arsenic.” He looks back up at Nick, voice adamant. “Not very much arsenic.” 

As if that might be what Nick’s worried about. He hears the words, but they hardly make sense. Platinum. Arsenic. _Bioware –_

Nicks feels sick. “You’re not a person.” His voice can’t decide whether it’s a question. 

Kyle’s face falls. His hand squeezes Nick’s. “I’m me. I’m still me.” 

Nick shakes his head. Too many thoughts, spinning too quick in his head, too much to try to make sense of. His heart races inside his chest, quick enough to make him feel light-headed. “This whole time – you’ve been lying to me about everything.” 

“Nick, I couldn’t tell you. I wasn’t allowed to tell you.” He’s starting to sound desperate. 

“We spent a million hours together,” Nick spits back. “You could have found a way. I taught you how to skate. We kissed.” Nick lets out a breath. “We had sex.” 

“I’m still that person.” Kyle repeats, his words tripping over each other. “I’m still the person you did all those things with. It shouldn’t matter. If – if I had a metal arm instead of a metal brain you wouldn’t think that – ” 

Nick can’t breathe. He can’t see. He feels numb, head to toe. “But you’re not a person.” 

Kyle is starting to cry. “Don’t say that.” 

Nick looks at him, but he feels a thousand miles distant, like he’s looking down on both of them from space. “Why not?” 

“Because it hurts.” Kyle’s crying for real now, hard enough that the last word chokes off into a sob. 

Nick watches his shoulder curl. He watches Kyle shake. He hears the words leave his mouth before he could even think about saying them. “Does it really?” 

Kyle snatches his hand away from Nick. “ _Yes_.” He swipes at his face, pulling his sleeve over his hand to try to rub away the tears. His eyes are red when he looks up at Nick. “Why are you being like this?” 

Nick can’t find the words. “You lied to me,” he breathes. “You lied about everything you were.” 

“I tried not to,” Kyle says. “I tried.” 

“Someone _built_ you.” Nick shakes his head, he can’t – “Who? Who built you?” 

“My parents.” Kyle sniffles. “And – ” 

“Your _parents_?” 

“Yes.” Kyle glares at him. “They _are_ my parents. The genetics for my bioware came from them. They’re as much my parents as anybody’s are. And they raised me.” His voice goes sharp. “Did a better job being parents than yours did, anyway.” 

That stings. Nick’s mouth opens, but nothing comes out. 

Kyle’s face crumples again. “I didn’t mean that. Nick, I didn’t mean – ” 

“You could have found a way to tell me,” Nick says. His voice sounds hollow. His chest hurts. 

“I was scared.” Kyle’s eyes are filling up again. “Nick, please.” 

Nick can’t feel anything at all. “I have to go.” He makes it one step, then two, before stopping. He gestures at the air, at the space, at everything between them. “We aren’t – ” he says, “I can’t.” 

And then he leaves. 

``

>   
>  `(You can’t speak to all the things that happened where you were not. But sometimes, for coherency, a story requires that you lay out the nuts and bolts (ha, ha), however inelegant it makes things look. So here, is what happened:`  
>    
>  `That summer Nick was drafted. That fall Nick left and played for the University of Minnesota. And after a year, when they asked him to come, he went to Florida, with the quickness of a man who has nothing holding him back.`  
>    
>  `It’s less than an hour by car to get from Blaine to the University of Minnesota. And from there, it’s only a three and a half hour flight to Florida.`  
>    
>  `But it took him years to get back.`  
>    
>  `The world, though, is a small place. Like planets in orbit, all things come back around eventually. And in one way or another, everybody comes home.)  
>  `  
> 

* * *

 

Nick breathes in the sameness of a place that hasn’t changed, but nonetheless looks different. Blaine looks shabbier than it does in his memories. Smaller. But the grass and the sun and the air all smell like what he thinks the beginning of summer should smell like. The colors all feel like the defaults of what summer days should bring. 

Nick sets his suitcase down in the entryway, and his mother hugs him. She hugged him in the airport, but he holds her again, careful. “I could have taken a cab,” he says. “You didn’t need to drive all that way.” 

“Don’t be silly,” she says. She smoothes her hands across his shoulders, straightening imaginary wrinkles. “I’ll make coffee.” 

She watches him while he wanders the living room, he can feel her gaze. She’s put a fresh coat of paint on the wall. Different pictures are arranged on the mantle. The couch in a new spot. He feels almost like a stranger in his own house. “It’s nice,” she says, hesitating, “to have you here. I mean – I love visiting you in Florida, don’t get me wrong. But it’s nice to have you here for a change.” 

Nick turns, and he can see her throat tighten. So much hope in her smile. Nick smiles back. “Yeah. It just – I guess it just felt like the right time to come home.” And enough time gone by, Nick thinks, for some old wounds to close. Time to test this new, grownup version of himself against whatever home can throw his way. 

She smiles again. “Do you have plans for while you’re here?” 

Nick doesn’t, really. The season had ended – ended hard, and earlier than they would have liked. Sticking around to bask in recrimination and failure hadn’t appealed. He’s really here because there isn’t a reason for him not to be, and not going back had felt like acknowledging that there were things he left broken. “Fish, maybe. I haven’t really thought about it, to be honest. Need to find a place to work out. Maybe skate.” He makes a face at that, though, thinking about who he might run into. It’s possible he underestimated the difficulty in visiting a small town, when he doesn’t want to see half the people there. 

She holds a mug out for him. “You don’t need to start skating yet, do you? It’s so early.” 

Old habits die hard. Nick shrugs. 

“Well, how long do you think you’ll stay?” 

Nick shrugs again and she makes a face. “Sorry, I just – haven’t had a chance to think about it.” 

“I’m glad you’re here,” she says. She lays a hand on his shoulder. 

Over dinner, she asks him about Florida. He tells her losing sucks as much as it always does. He tell her the head coach likes his game, but he also tells her he doesn’t think the head coach is going to be back in the fall. 

She takes all this hockey news with polite interest, and then says, “What about – are you seeing anyone down there?” 

Nick’s fork pauses, halfway between plate and mouth. Being here makes him feel like a stranger, and it feels strange to get asked personal things. “No. Not at the moment.” He pauses and looks at her carefully composed face. “Wait, are you? Seeing someone?” 

“Not at the moment,” she echoes. 

He sits back in his chair, and he thinks he can see her blushing. _You leave,_ he thinks, _and things change._

 

 

His spends the first few days sunning himself on the back deck, or working out, or sprawled on the sofa, catching up on sleep. He changes all her burned out light bulbs and puts away all the winter linens on the top shelves. He washes her car, and when he starts eyeing the overgrown flowerbeds in the back, she says, “You know there are still pick up games at Fogerty?” 

“You’re trying to get me out of the house,” he says. 

Her mouth is half a smile. “Well,” she says. “I just though maybe you might want to. I thought you might be bored.” 

Nick thinks about it. “Dad’s not coaching any of the summer teams this year, is he?” 

She hesitates, and he thinks maybe she won’t answer, even though it’s a small enough town that she would know. She asks, “did you tell him you were visiting?” 

“No,” Nick says. 

She nods. “Have you – ” 

“No,” Nick says, firmer this time. 

“Fine,” she says. She shakes her head. “No, as far as I know, he’s not doing any summer coaching.” 

That’s good. That’s a start. “Well, in that case, there’s only all the _other_ people I’m trying to avoid.” He twists his mouth into a smile to let her know he’s joking, even if it did come out a little bitter. 

She rolls her eyes at him and shakes her head. “You haven’t been back for two years, who do you even have to avoid anymore?” 

“Well – Kyle,” Nick says. 

Her smile slips. “It’s been a long time.” 

Nick hums and looks away, and that’s about all he wants to say about that. 

“Anyway,” she continues, softer. “I don’t think you’ll run into him. He played for Anoka College for a season, but he left the team. Or, I think he got cut. As far as I know, he’s not playing anywhere anymore.” 

Nick frowns. “He got cut from Anoka?” He feels a pulse of unexpected indignation. There’s no way Kyle should have been cut from such a small program. He should have been the best person on that team. By a mile. “Why?” 

She just shrugs. “You’d have to ask him.” 

 

 

Nick’s not going to ask Kyle what happened at Anoka. 

Nick has not talked to Kyle since the night he left him, broken and sobbing in some stranger’s back yard. His mind skates away from that memory – it’s still sharp-edged enough to make his heart race. Still fills his mouth with that particular, bitter taste of guilt. 

He still doesn’t know what the right answer was that night. He still doesn’t know what exactly he should have done, but he must have done something wrong, if thinking about it two years later still makes him sick. 

So he’s not going to ask Kyle. But he might ask Leddy. 

After a week of sitting on his ass, Nick dusts off his skates, and heads to Fogerty. 

Leddy, unsurprisingly, is the one leading drills on the ice. He grins when Nick joins them. “Well, look what the cat dragged in.” And then he runs Nick’s ass ragged. 

After the skate, Nick says, “I want to talk to you. About Kyle.” 

Leddy’s eyes focus on his face, and he looks like he might say a thousand different things, or like he might blow Nick off entirely. In the end, he just shakes his head. “Not here.” 

 

 

He does invite Nick back to the condo he’s renting for the summer. Leddy answers the door in socks and gym shorts. He shuffles back towards the living room, waving a lazy hand for Nick to follow, and leaving Nick to shut the door behind him. “So,” Leddy says, still walking away from him, words tossed over his shoulder. “You wanted to talk about Kyle. Well. Let’s talk.” 

Nick rounds the corner. He sees Leddy first, and then he sees Kyle, sitting at the kitchen table. Nick stares. “Leddy?” he asks, careful. 

Leddy shrugs; he’s pulling two beers out of the fridge. “It seemed rude to talk about him behind his back. So I invited him over.” 

Nick glowers at him. 

Kyle looks back and forth between Nick and Leddy. “Hello, Nick,” he says. He doesn’t sound upset or surprised. His voice is flat. 

Leddy sets both bottles on the table. He takes a seat, cracks one beer, and slides the other toward the remaining empty chair. “You’re not going to hurt him, I can tell you that.” 

It should sound like a warning, or an admonition. But Leddy just makes it sound like a statement of fact. Leddy looks up at him. “Sit down, Nick,” he says. “Join the party.” 

Nick sits. He pulls the beer towards him, slow, keeping his eyes on Kyle the whole time. 

Kyle blinks back at him, face so blank it looks wrong. He looks sick. He hardly looks human – or well, hardly looks like something that could pass for human. He didn’t always look like this. He doesn’t look like this in Nick’s memories – 

Memories like wave rush over Nick. Kyle’s hand in his. Kyle’s joy after goals. The warmth of his body, tucked against Nick’s. Nick has to take a breath. Has to force the air in. Has to clench the beer, so his hands won’t shake. 

Through all of that, Kyle watches him, impassive. 

Nick swallows. “What’s wrong with him?” 

Leddy raises an eyebrow. He turns to Kyle. “Do you want to tell him? Or should I?” 

Kyle shrugs. 

Leddy drags his fingers through the condensation on the side of the bottle in front of him. He looks up, squints at Nick. “You fucked him up, Nick. He was a mess after you broke up with him. He hurt so much he didn’t want to feel anything any more.” He pauses to tip his beer towards Nick, a mocking salute. “So he doesn’t. We got rid of all of his emotional circuits.” 

Kyle’s face doesn’t register any reaction at all. 

That half-dizzy, sick feeling is back. The disorientation of what he’s hearing being ever so slightly out of register with what he believed was possible. “How – ” Nick starts. “How could you – ” And what he means, what he thinks he means, anyway, is how is that even possible, and how could Leddy do it, and how is it possible for something so fundamental to be stripped out of someone – 

Something, Nick reminds himself. Makes himself think the word. _Something_. 

But what Leddy answers, is why. “Because he asked me to.” Leddy’s quiet. His tone is steady, but he narrows his eyes at Nick, and there’s real, banked fire in there. “Because he _begged_ me to.” 

Nick’s face burns. His stomach twists in on itself, something horrible and cold winding through it. He drags his eyes back to Kyle, who still doesn’t seem upset by any of it. He barely registers a reaction at all, his gaze flicking between Leddy and Nick with polite but distracted attention. “Kyle, are you – ” Nick stops. _Okay_ , he wants to ask. But it’s clear he’s not. Or maybe he’s fine, and won’t ever be anything but that flat, blank sort of fine. 

After a moment, Kyle’s gaze wanders from his, like he’s bored by the proceedings. 

“Is he – ” Nick turns back to Leddy. “Does he remember?” 

“Sure he remembers,” Leddy says. He takes another pull of his beer. “He just doesn’t care.” 

Nick tastes bile, and he must look terrible, because Leddy takes pity on him. “Hey, Kyle, why don’t you go hang out upstairs for a bit?” 

Kyle shrugs again. “Sure.” He gets up from the table and heads out of the room. He doesn’t look back. 

Nick blows out a long breath, counting the seconds of the exhale, trying for calm. “Jesus Christ, Leddy. Jesus _fucking_ Christ.” He presses his palms hard against eyes. But he can still see that blank look, the utter disregard with which Kyle had listened to that whole story, and then just walked away. “Jesus Christ.” It comes out more a moan than anything else. 

“Aww, Bjugs.” Leddy sighs. “Look, part of me would love to blame everything on you, but.” He shrugs and he looks disgruntled. “It’s not actually that simple. I never should have – ” He presses a hand to the bridge of his nose, like he’s chasing away an ache, and pauses before continuing. “Kyle was programmed to want to play hockey, and to want to be the best he could be at it. That’s what he was built to do, and he was better at it than any of us predicted. But he was never – he could never have gone pro. Even the U would have been too high profile.” 

Leddy shakes his head. “I never should have let it get as far as it did. He smiles, but it’s a tight expression, no happiness in it at all. “Now, he still knows what he was built to do, and that he won’t ever achieve it, but – but at least this way he doesn’t care.” 

Nick blinks at him. For a moment it’s all too much, and all he can hear is Leddy’s voice in his head, saying over and over again, _he was programmed._

Nick finally cracks his beer. He drains half of it in one go. He takes a breath. And then another. He looks at Leddy. “How do you know so much about him?” 

But the answer’s right there, in front of him. If he pushes through his cold, numb horror, he can remember all the nights they spent in the basement of a house not that far from here. He can remember the careful way Leddy’s eyes tracked Kyle. Leddy’s tight management of his time and his attention. And the way Kyle had always looked to Leddy, as thought constantly asking, _is this right? Am I getting this right?_

“You knew,” Nick says. “You knew the whole time.” 

Leddy looks surprised. “Of course I did. I designed him.” 

Nick has stopped breathing. Nick’s vision has tunneled down to almost nothing. 

Leddy continues, oblivious. “Carol built him, and Ted did most of the coding, but I designed him.” He finally registers Nick’s silence and frowns. “Bjugs?” he says. “Nick?” 

> ` (You sat together, his arm around you, and your head resting against his shoulder, as you both watched your mind scroll past on the screen in front of you. “This is what your brain is going to look like,” he said, finger dabbing at those flickering rows of numbers and commands. The look on his face was one of devoted, rapturous concentration. And you felt cherished that all this time and energy was being devoted to you. You felt loved.) `

 

 

“I guess maybe I deserved that.” Leddy is holding a bag of frozen French fries against his jaw, right over the spot where Nick punched him. 

Nick has his head in his hands, and the beer has been switched out for whiskey. 

“It’s crazy that I’m playing hockey, right?” Leddy’s words are just a little bit garbled from his jaw starting to swell. He shakes his head. “I probably could have gotten into MIT at sixteen for what I did with Kyle, and instead I got Joel Quenneville calling me a dumb oaf. Can you believe that?” 

Nick shakes his head. He doesn’t bother looking up. Nick doesn’t really know what to believe. 

Leddy reaches for his glass and knocks back the rest of it’s contents. Then he makes a face and winces. He appears to be prodding the inside of his mouth with his tongue. Then he shrugs and holds out the glass towards Nick. “Hit me.” 

When Nick looks up, Leddy looks pleased at his joke. “Fuck you,” Nick says. He pours for both of them. 

The level of liquid in the bottle is significantly lower, when Nick clears his throat. He looks past his glass, at Leddy’s face. “Can you fix him?” 

“Can I – ” Leddy frowns, wriggles his fingers as if typing on an imaginary keyboard. “I can’t just hit un-delete, if that’s what you’re asking. Those circuits don’t exist anymore. They’re gone.” 

Nick nods at this. “Why can’t he play anymore? Even just at Anoka – ” 

Leddy looks sad all over again. “Because he was never physically dominant. What made him good is how much he wanted it.” 

Nick reaches for the bottle. 

Nick has to work up his nerve for the next question. He steels himself. “What’s going to happen to him?” 

Leddy’s mouth twists. He turns his glass in his hands. “Make a life the best he can. Like any of us, I guess.” He shrugs. “He can stay here with me, or with his parents.” 

He trails off, and Nick imagines Kyle alone, sitting at the kitchen table in this empty condo, staring off at nothing. Or rattling around in the Rau’s big, suburban spread. Days filled with long stretches of nothing, and no one. Knowing only that he a job – a goal – a destiny – that he is incapable of fulfilling. 

He thinks about Kyle before, and all the things he was, and all the things he dreamed of being. 

It hurts. A terrible, sharp, sickening ache – that guilt that’s been following him around, but a thousand time stronger and worse than he remembers. This can’t be how he leaves things here. 

Nick sets his glass down. He takes a breath and he lays his hands flat on the table. “I want to take him back with me to Florida.” 

Leddy’s eyebrows go up. He straightens in his chair. “He’s not a dog, okay? He’s not a pet you can just – ” 

“I know,” Nick says. He looks at Leddy, dead serious, voice even as he can make it. “I want to take him back with me to Florida.” 

 

 

Upstairs, they find Kyle sitting at a desk. He has papers in front of him, but when they come in, his hands still. He looks up at them. 

Nick kneels to bring their eyes closer to level. Kyle watches him, but he says nothing. 

“I’m sorry,” Nick says. It seems like the thing to say. It probably should have been the first thing, or really, it should have come a very long time ago. But that ship has sailed, and now here they are. 

Kyle’s gaze wanders his face, taking him in, but settling nowhere. He blinks. “It’s okay,” he says. It’s flat; there’s no color to his voice, no depth. 

A meaningless reply to an apology that came too late. 

Nick swallows back the ache. He tries again. “I live in Florida now. Do you want to go to Florida with me?” 

Kyle is quiet. 

“Bjugs,” Leddy says from behind him, something strained in his voice. “He can’t – he doesn’t _want_ anything now.” 

Nick doesn’t look at him. He doesn’t look away from Kyle. “But you’d be okay with Florida? It’s nice. It’s warm. I live by the ocean. So you’d get to see something new.” Nick keeps his voice low. “There’s a men’s league you could play in, if you wanted to. Would you be okay with that?” 

Kyle blinks again and shrugs. “Sure. I’d be okay with that.” 

“Bjugs are you sure about this?” Nick can hear the worry creeping into Leddy’s words. 

Kyle’s face is so familiar, and so close. But flat and still in an entirely foreign way. And Nick did that. Nick broke that. And he needs to fix it. “Yeah. I’m sure.” 

“If you’re gonna take custody of him, you should be an administrator.” Leddy still sounds reluctant, but not like he’s going to put up a fight. 

Nick glances back at him. “How do we do that?” 

“Hey, Kyle,” Leddy nods at him. “Bjugs is an admin now.” 

Kyle nods. “Got it.” 

Nick frowns. “Shouldn’t you need, like, a password or something for that?” 

“I can recognize Leds.” Kyle is looking at him, and Nick thinks he can hear an echo of what should have been disdain in his voice. “I don’t need a password to recognize him. Or you.” 

A ghost of what should be feeling. “Okay,” Nick says. “Okay.” He reaches for Kyle’s hand. 

* * *

 


	4. Kyle

* * *

 

``

>   
>  `(This is the part of the story from the gray time, the vague time. It’s not that you don’t remember – you do – but emotion is what gives salience to memories, what gives them color and depth. And without these, memories become hard to decipher. Was it the weather that was the important thing that day? Or was it the man who came to see you? Or was it some other detail hanging at the edge of your mind? Without weight, memories blur and blend together. Less a story, than a barrage of details, the relationships among which are difficult, if not impossible, to decipher.`  
>    
>  `So this version of the story, is one that has been pared down to coherency the best you can make it. Is it changed by you looking back? By the differences between how you are now and how you were then? `  
>    
>  `Of course it is.`  
>    
>  `But then, who can say if that makes it any less true? Certainly not you. Anyway, who’s to say that any one version of the story is truer than any other? Wouldn’t this story read different if it were told by Mike Bjugstad? Or Andrew Sudman? Or Smitty? `  
>    
>  `This is just your version of your story. But that’s important. It’s important to tell yourself your own story.)`  
> 

Kyle is watching the ocean. 

From Nick’s house, it is a short walk to a place where you can see the sea. And there are many things to watch: people and dogs and birds and games and cars and strange trees and unfamiliar forms of reptilian life and endless, endless water. This is good for when Nick is away. 

But Nick is coming home today, so Kyle gets up, and walks back to the house. He lets himself in with the key Nick gave him. 

Nick calls it “their” house, but this seems like a useless definition. It doesn’t change anything about how the house is operated, or shared, or filled, or lived in. Nevertheless, Nick thinks it is important. His voice pauses over and puts weight on the word when he says it. He says it often when he speaks of the house. 

_What do you think of our house?_

_I’m headed back to our place._

_Do you want to stop back at our house to change before dinner?_

Kyle marks this down with the same careful accuracy he does all potentially helpful information. 

The coffee is kept in the first cabinet. 

The hot water in the guest bathroom comes from the right tap, not the left. 

Nick wants Kyle to consider the house theirs. 

Nick gets home soon after Kyle does. He kicks off his shoes and drops his bags on the counter, and then the first thing he does is come over to Kyle. He likes to touch Kyle almost immediately upon arriving home, as though he does not quite trust his eyes’ evidence that Kyle is here. Or maybe he is reassuring himself that Kyle feels like he remembers. That he feels human. 

Most often he touches Kyle on the arm – on the shoulder or forearm. Sometimes he touches Kyle’s back. Very occasionally, he touches Kyle’s hand. 

Today, he squeezes Kyle’s forearm, just above the wrist. “Hi.” 

“Hello,” Kyle says. 

“Did you eat?” 

Kyle shakes his head no. 

“Are you hungry? I stopped at Publix.” 

Kyle does need to eat, so he says yes, and Nick plates food for both of them. He talks about hockey while they eat. About practice. About his team. Kyle collects this information because someday it might be useful. Sometimes he asks questions. 

Nick finishes giving his rundown of the day’s events and then he falls quiet. This is usually when he gets up, to turn on the TV, or make a phone call, or suggest they go on a walk, but today he remains seated at the table, quiet and still. Until he finally says, “so listen.” 

His tone is different, and he hesitates, which means that either he is unsure how to say what he wants to express or that he does not want to say it. Or possibly, only that he is ensuring Kyle’s attention. 

Kyle attends to him. He looks at Nick to let him know he is doing so. 

Nick’s fingers drum on the table. “You know how Leddy made me an administrator?” 

Some of Nick’s hesitation makes sense now. Nick doesn’t like talking about the aspects of Kyle that mark him as distinct from human. Probably, Kyle thinks, because he doesn’t like thinking about Kyle as distinct from human. Kyle understands that – back when Kyle liked things, he very much didn’t like thinking about that. 

Of course, the easiest way to not have to think about that, would be for Nick to not have brought Kyle down to Florida with him, but then, lots of things Nick does don’t seem to make sense. Like Nick’s last question. Of course Kyle knows Leddy made Nick an administrator. And Nick knows that Kyle knows that, but it was phrased as a question, so Kyle nods. 

Nick’s hands still and he lays them flat. “Well, I want to do that for you.” 

Confused, Kyle waits for him to clarify. 

“I want to make you an administrator.” Nick is looking at him. “Is that something that I – that we – can do?” 

As far as Kyle knows, there’s no specific – code, rule, guideline – about whether Kyle can modify or administer to his own system. But then, there are so few guidelines about anything regarding him and his existence. 

“A gray legal area,” Kyle’s mother had said, her whole face wrinkling when she said it, as though she found the subject distasteful. “That whole sort of thing gets into some – ugly questions. There are a number of people in the field who don’t like – well, that.” 

But either way, how would you enforce any of it? 

“There’s no specific rule,” Kyle decides on saying, and then, in the interest of completeness, “but, I think it’s frowned upon.” 

Nick frowns at that. “I think we should do it,” he says. He sounds more certain now. “I want you to be able to control your own – ” Here he stumbles, pausing. “Circuits. Mind. Self.” 

Kyle nods. “Okay.” He looks at Nick. “Why?” 

Nick blinks. That particular look on his face that means Kyle’s asked a question that was more complicated than he initially realized. 

_How is the 1-3-1 supposed to work?_

_How is your mom doing?_

_Why?_

Nick’s words, when he speaks, come out slow, like he wants to get this right. “I want you to try to fix your – to fix whatever you need to in order to feel again. To be whole again. I can’t – I don’t know how to do that. But you do.” 

Nick is making a number of assumptions about Kyle’s programming skills, but that seems like a minor point. The better question, is what is Kyle supposed to get out of having his feelings restored? “Why would I want to do that?” 

Nick bites his lip. His answer comes quick, like he was ready for this question. “You still want to play hockey. You still want to be the best hockey player you can be?” He looks at Kyle for confirmation. 

This is true – if you substitute “has a goal of” for “wants” – but the shades of meaning there, Nick would probably deem irrelevant, so Kyle just nods. “Yes.” 

“Okay.” Nick swallows. “Being able to feel – to be motivated to win and achieve – made you a better player. It made you competitive.” He waits again for Kyle to nod, and Kyle acquiesces. “So if you can do something to do that, to get that back, you should – right?” 

It doesn’t seem – the logic doesn’t seem obviously flawed. 

When Kyle hesitates, Nick smiles. “I’m right, right? That makes sense to you?” 

He asks that a lot, _does that make sense to you_. He started asking that when he noticed Kyle had trouble answering questions that started with, _do you want_. 

“Yes,” Kyle says. “That makes sense.” 

Nick is still grinning. “Then I – do that. You’re an administrator now. Okay?” 

With a thought, Kyle adjusts what he needs to. 

“Did it work?” Nick’s not smiling anymore. His brow is furrowed. 

“Yes,” Kyle says. “It worked.” 

“Okay. Okay. Then that’s your goal then – to get all those feelings back. To get back what you had.” Nick is leaning back in his chair, with the air of a person who thinks the hard part is over. 

Kyle isn’t sure of that. But, “that’s the goal,” he confirms. 

 

 

The screen of the computer Kyle has set up in the office upstairs displays ten windows, each with lines of code scrolling past too fast to read. 

“That’s your brain?” Nick asks. Nick is sitting next to him. He’d seemed immensely relieved about the noninvasiveness of the proceedings. 

“So, you don’t have to, like, plug into anything?” He’d asked. 

As if Kyle was going to roll up his sleeve and reveal some heretofore unnoticed port. As if Nick’s hands hadn’t been over every inch of his skin. “It’s wireless,” Kyle said. “Obviously.” 

Kyle looks at the screen. “Yes,” he says, in answer to Nick’s question. “Well. Not all of it – those are the ten currently most active subroutines.” 

“How many active subroutines are there?” 

“Between five and nine thousand at any given time,” Kyle says, scrolling. 

Nick is silent. 

Kyle glances over at him. “Fewer when I’m sleeping. More when I’m doing something complicated – like playing hockey – but that’s not that often, anymore.” 

Nick looks unexpectedly sad. He reaches over and touches Kyle’s face. A light, lingering stroke of Kyle’s cheek and jaw. In Florida, he never touches Kyle’s face. And even now he is hesitant, as if he’s unsure if this is allowed, which is strange, because he’s touched Kyle’s face before. He used to touch it all the time. There’s nowhere he hasn’t touched. 

“Kyle, I am so, so sorry,” Nick says. 

Kyle blinks at him. “That’s alright.” 

Nick winces. He takes his hand away. Nick apologizes a lot. He never seems satisfied by Kyle’s answers. 

Kyle returns his attention back to the screen. He pulls up windows of what used to be his limbic system. Parts of it are intact – memories are still recorded and shuffled off to appropriate storage, but most of it is a flat line, a blank screen, and a blinking curser. Kyle hesitates, unsure of how exactly to start. He looks at Nick. “I’m not – I’ve watched, but I’ve never done this before.” 

Nick asks, “What happens if you mess up?” 

Kyle considers. “I guess I could crash my vital functions.” He pauses, groping for the layman’s terms. “Become a vegetable?” He strikes a few, exploratory keys. 

Nick seems frozen. A look on his face that Kyle associates with horror. “Are you – maybe we shouldn’t – are you sure?” 

Kyle shrugs. “I’ve already started.” 

Nick swallows. “Well, can I – get you anything?” 

Kyle doesn’t look away from the code. Probably if he looked at enough of it, he’d find the answer to Nick’s question there. “I could use a cup of coffee?” 

Nick nods. “I’ll get that.” 

Kyle doesn’t watch him leave the room. 

 

 

It’s good to have a goal. It gives an order to his days. And if he can focus his energy on the concrete progress of coding, Kyle has less time to think about more complex and troubling questions. Like why does Nick move so quietly and carefully around him. And why, if the answer to that is that Kyle makes him uncomfortable, did he bring Kyle to Florida at all? 

Instead, Kyle focuses on the code. He copies the basic structure from elsewhere, and imports it, laying down the groundwork for new neural pathways that will become highways for information. A system that will build on itself, will learn and expand all on its own to encompass all of what it needs to, before self-refining through a process of redundancy testing, to become efficient. But right now, all he can do is seed the ground with that basic framework. It will take years, if not decades, to gain the requisite complexity to be anywhere near functional. 

But it’s the best he knows how to do. 

He hears the garage open downstairs, and then the sound of the door and Nick’s voice. He goes downstairs to investigate. To see if Nick brought home food. 

He finds Nick in the kitchen. He is with Vincent Trocheck and Aleksander Barkov. Kyle knows who they are from watching Nick’s games and from listening to his stories. But he is surprised. Nick hasn’t ever brought people to the house – _their house_ – and in fact, even now, he seems to be trying to get them to leave. 

“Okay,” Nick says, even as he’s moving back towards the door. “You’ve proved to yourselves that yes, I actually do still have a house. It exists. Now let’s go.” 

Trocheck laughs. “You never have people over anymore, I was starting to think you burned it down and were too embarrassed to tell anyone. What do you have to be so goddamn – ” He stops speaking. He’s staring at Kyle 

Nick turns to follow his gaze. “Oh. You are home.” 

Kyle looks back at Trocheck, whose mouth hangs open, in a perfect expression of comic surprise. Next to him, Barkov blinks twice. Kyle doesn’t answer Nick, because Nick’s statement doesn’t seem to need one. 

Nick looks resigned. He waves Kyle over and rests a hand on his shoulder. “This is my – friend. Kyle. He – ” Nick trails off for a moment. “He had a stroke. He’s staying with me while he gets better.” 

Kyle contemplates the word _friend_ , and if the hesitation and weight that went into it were a mark of uncertainty or untruth. _Stroke_ , he thinks, if you give it the operational definition of a cutoff in the supply of a life-giving support substance to a specific region of information processing, is completely accurate. 

Kyle knows he's supposed to say something now. To participate in the conversation, because it makes people feel more comfortable. But right now, he doesn't particularly care about making Nick, or his teammates, feel comfortable. 

Trocheck, speaking too loud and too slow, and with a look of mild panic on his face, says, “Hello, Kyle. I’m sorry you’re sick.” 

Barkov gives his teammates a short, hard look, and then he turns to Kyle. “Hi Kyle, I’m Sasha.” He lifts a hand to wave. His voice is so soft Kyle has to pay attention to hear, and he speaks slowly, picking his words with care. “My grandmother had a stroke. The first few weeks were very hard. But after that, she got much better, very quickly. I hope you feel better soon.” He smiles. 

“Thank you,” Kyle says. 

Both Trocheck and Sasha look surprised. 

Nick laughs. 

Trocheck says, “We should – I guess we’ll let you guys – I’ll see you around, Bjugs?” 

After Nick shuts the door behind them, he says, “I wasn’t expecting that to happen today. I hadn’t really worked out what I wanted to say about – you know. And, I didn’t really know what you would want me to say, because – ” He stops, the last of whatever he was trying to say sticking in his throat. 

“Gray area,” Kyle supplies. “Because it’s a gray area?” It’s one reason not to advertise what he is, anyway. Maybe one of the better reasons. 

“Yes.” Nick says. “Thank you.” 

Kyle shrugs. “It’s fine.” 

Nick’s face stills. “It’s not, though. It’s really, really not.” He keeps watching Kyle, like he’s waiting for Kyle to offer something more. 

Kyle has nothing more to give. 

``

>   
>  `(You were made with a very simple goal: to play hockey. And you always came back to that, like compass needle returning to the top of its circle. You were always looked at through the lens of this goal. Your parents were proud that you pushed the very limits of what was thought possible. Leddy was excited to see you help your shared team. But Nick loved you without knowing anything of that. Nick was the first person who saw you as you wanted to be seen, and Nick looked at you with affection. He looked to you for comfort. He looked at you with desire. For no other reason than that you were you.`  
>    
>  `You loved him for that. And when you looked back at him, you could feel everything in you shift and re-center in a way that shouldn’t have been possible, as though north itself had moved.)`  
> 

Sasha comes over to see him. Whether he has asked Nick’s permission to do this, or perhaps even does it at Nick’s request, is unclear. Sasha says, “If you’re tired, or don’t want to hang out, just say so.” 

But Kyle has already accomplished the bulk of programming he needs to do. There is only so long he can sit and watch the automated process of the program as it writes a line, pauses, assesses, and repeats. He has lots of time to fill. 

The second time he comes over, Sasha brings his PlayStation. “It’s good for building hand-eye coordination.” He watches Kyle turn the controller over in his hands. “Although maybe you don’t need much help with that.” 

“I’ve played some before.” He has. Back in Minnesota. Although not much, since it was never Leddy’s thing, and it was always better to be out skating. “And my hand-eye coordination is fine,” Kyle says, because that’s the truth. “But let’s play anyway.” 

Sasha doesn’t talk much while they’re playing, except sometimes to explain things. Kyle wouldn’t mind either way, but his own reticence means Sasha is fine with Kyle’s infrequent responses. Or, at least he doesn’t seem uncomfortable. 

Kyle also likes that in video games, faces are reduced to component parts, which makes them easy to read. And actions are selected from a list, which makes figuring out what one should do in any given situation much easier. Kyle likes the sports games because the actions are realer, and they mean more to him than an endless succession of improbably large explosions. 

Sasha likes sports games, too, and specifically FIFA. Possibly, Kyle thinks, because he has an encyclopedic knowledge of AC Milan, and this is one way to show it off. Or perhaps, given the look of affection on his face, it’s just one more way to show his devotion. 

So they play FIFA until they’ve played it to death, and then they turn to NHL 15. 

Kyle has played and watched enough hockey to be disappointed by it. After their first trial run, Kyle frowns at the screen. 

“Yeah, I know,” Sasha says, even though Kyle hasn’t said anything. “Not as good as the real thing, and they messed a lot of things up. The hits pretty good, but the boards aren’t right. And the ice acts the same at the beginning of the period as at the end. Stupid.” 

Kyle banks the electronic puck off the electronic boards. Then he does it again. Sasha’s right; the bounce is wrong. 

NHL 15 can’t possibly be more complex than his brain. 

Kyle quits them out of the game. He pulls out his laptop, plugs in, opens an editor, and cracks his way into the right directory. 

Sasha sits back against the couch. The only thing he says is, “You could really mess something up, you know.” 

“Sure,” Kyle agrees. But he’s already started. 

The first fix takes him two hours of writing, testing, and re-writing. When he finishes, he looks up to find Sasha has wandered off, and that pizza has appeared on the table in front of him. 

Kyle calls for him, and Sasha reappears. 

Kyle hands him the controller, and then shoves a piece of pizza into his mouth. 

Sasha starts a new game, flings the puck, and says, “Oh. That is better.” 

When he finishes chewing, Kyle reaches for the keyboard. “What else don’t you like?” 

 

 

When he’s not crashing into real ones, Sasha is surprisingly happy to spend hours crashing into virtual boards, over and over again, at different angles. Over two weeks, they put together a list of thirty problems, and Kyle comes up with the changes to the game physics and code to fix them. Because he can’t think of a reason not to, he emails this list of problems and proposed solutions off to EA Sports. 

A week later, EA Sports emails back with a job offer. 

Nick says, “You got a job?” He looks surprised, he looks almost dumbfounded. “You got a job playing video games?” 

“Well,” Kyle hems. “Basically – yes.” 

He thinks for a moment that Nick is going to say no – that Kyle’s not allowed. Even though Kyle can’t really think why Nick would, because his face is so frozen. Then Nick looks down, and laughs, short and sharp, and Kyle thinks maybe Nick is about to make fun of him. Video games are just toys for kids, after all. And Kyle’s not – he’s not going to be making anywhere near what Nick does. 

But when Nick looks up, there’s a warmth in his expression, spreading under that surprise. He shakes his head. “Amazing.” And when he looks at Kyle, he looks proud. He looks at Kyle the way he used to, back when Kyle was learning how to play hockey. Back when Nick loved him, just for being him. 

 

 

“If we didn’t have a quota, we wouldn’t have so many redundancies, and then you wouldn’t have so much trouble multi-tasking – ” 

“We _don’t_ have trouble multitasking. And if you didn’t have quotas, half your team wouldn’t turn in shit – ” 

Kyle rests his head on the table in front of him. It probably isn’t a proper business posture, he’s sitting in the kitchen, on a conference call, so it hardly matters. 

What he’s learned, in the last several months of working in video game development, is that everyone is an idiot. 

The developers, who write the code, generally don’t like people finding problems with it. The testers, whose job it is to find problems, don’t like being vilified or ignored. Kyle, who does some of both, is in an ideal position to mediate this conflict, but no one listens to Kyle, because even several months in, he is still “the new guy”. Right now, revisions are being prioritized based on who is friends with who, which makes absolutely no sense, and is slowing down the entire process. 

“You’re not the one who gave a Q1 deadline – ” 

Kyle takes a breath and grinds his teeth. The whole process is irritating. 

And at that thought, he straightens in his chair. 

Kyle is irritated. 

He tunes out the phone call and pays attention to the tightness of his jaw, his slight headache, and the low burn of irritation running through his thoughts. He is definitely feeling irritated. 

He is definitely feeling. 

Kyle mutes the call and goes upstairs to the office where the computer he set up to monitor his mind’s process has been quietly humming away unattended for months. He scrolls until he finds what he’s looking for: the visual representation of the circuits that mediate his emotions. 

He blinks at the screen, double checks to make sure he’s looking at the right subroutines. The automated progress is astonishing. He’s surprised to see the extent of regrowth. Kyle watches the screen as the process plays out – and there – they’re acting cooperatively, every bit of progress magnified as one cell learns from the experience of all the rest. 

His emotional bit rate is still a trickle compared to the Niagara flow of everything else he’s doing. But it’s there, and it’s increasing. 

Bit by bit, steadily building new routes through damaged earth. He can’t help but be a little proud of it. 

He goes back downstairs and unmutes the call. His coworkers are still going at it. It’s still irritating. 

Kyle smiles. 

 

 

His feelings come back in stages. Unevenly. Irritation is the first, coming in fully and with a vengeance. Kyle snaps at Nick until Nick starts making himself scarce – staying out after practice, coming home late. That’s fine with Kyle. Kyle can just as easily be irritated by the guys at EA. By the line at the grocery store. By the temperature of the air. By the color of paint on the walls. 

Kyle eyes the oven. It’s a stupid machine. It takes too long to cook things and it makes the whole kitchen hot. And the way the racks are positioned – it’s like it’s designed to be easy to burn yourself. 

Kyle stands at the sink and looks down at his hand, at the long, thin line of reddened flesh from where he just burnt it. It hurts, and Kyle is filled with a vicious anger at the inanimate object that did it to him, far out of proportion to the actual pain of the injury. 

Stupid oven. Kyle turns the facet on and holds his hand under the cold water. He tries taking a calming breath, but all that means is he can better smell the salmon that’s starting to burn. 

There is absolutely nothing calming about breathing. Fuck breathing. Maybe he’ll take a sledgehammer to the oven instead. 

And just then there’s the sound of the garage and Nick comes in and says, “hey, Kyle. How was your day?” 

Kyle squeezes his eyes shut and bites his tongue. 

Nick walks over. “Hey. Did you hurt your hand?” 

“My hand is fine,” Kyle snaps, and then tries to get it together. Nick didn’t burn Kyle’s hand. This isn’t his fault. Kyle tries breathing again. “Can you pull the salmon out?” 

But instead, Nick is reaching for his hand. “Let me see it.” 

Kyle grits his teeth. “Nick – ” 

“It doesn’t look too bad. Is it – I mean, are you going to heal like – ” Nick trails off. 

The urge to scream is right there. Kyle wants to yell that his skin is made up of just exactly the same stuff as Nick’s and it functions in just exactly the same way – and that Nick knows this and Kyle does not have time to explain it again right now. Instead, Kyle manages a mostly even, if clipped, “My hand is _fine_. I just need you to get the salmon out of the oven.” 

Nick looks at him, doe-eyed. “Are you sure you’re okay?” 

“Get the fucking fish out the fucking oven,” Kyle yells. 

 

 

Over a dinner of salad and lightly charred salmon, Nick deftly avoids his gaze, keeping his full attention on the plate in front of him. Kyle watches him create a pile of blackened bits that he is trying to hide under a spinach leaf. 

Kyle sighs. He is less irritated now. Mostly, he’s just tired. Nick hasn’t said anything about how Kyle’s been acting. It seems unlikely he hasn’t noticed, so maybe he just doesn’t know what to say. “I’m sorry I yelled at you. I’ve been feeling irritated.” 

From across the table, Nick glances up, cautious look on his face. “That’s okay.” 

However, the significance of the statement seems to have entirely escaped him. “No, Nick,” Kyle tries again. “I _feel_ irritated.” 

This time, Nick blinks. “Oh. _Oh_.” He smiles. “So you’re – it’s working?” 

God, he has a penchant for stating the obvious. “Yes,” Kyle bites out. 

Nick manages to look happy to be snapped at. 

 

 

Sadness is the next to come back. Long, aching waves of melancholy that wash over him. That make accomplishing anything hard, and leave him crying over nothing. 

“What if I always feel like this?” Kyle asks, pressed into the couch. He has no energy to rise. Hardly enough energy to keep his eyes open, just a pressing, hollow, mournful feeling, as though someone dear had died. 

Nick says, “You’re not always going to feel like this.” 

“How do you know?” Kyle’s voice catches. “What if it’s always like this? What if I never feel better?” 

“It’s going to get better,” Nicks says. Weight behind it this time. 

“You don’t know that.” Kyle starts to cry again. “Fuck. I can’t do anything.” He’s still in his pajamas; he hasn’t made it out of the house for days. “I cant work. I can’t cook or help you at all. I can’t do anything – ” 

“Hey, hey.” And then there’s the slow slide of Nick’s arm around his shoulders, pulling him in. He pulls Kyle up against his chest. “You take care of you. I will take care of everything else.” His voice is even; his grip is tight. “You just focus on taking care of you. You were angry with me for like two weeks straight, that didn’t last. This isn’t going to either.” 

“I wasn’t angry at you,” Kyle sniffs. “I was angry at everything.” He twists his fingers into Nick’s shirt, holding on to this unexpected closeness. 

“Okay, but it still didn’t last.” Kyle can hear the smile in his voice. 

“No,” Kyle agrees. He leans further into Nick’s side. He closes his eyes and focuses on the warmth. On the sensation of not being alone. Of being cared for. 

That evening, they stay like that, Nick with one arm around him, one hand resting in Kyle’s hair. And that night, when they go to bed, Nick follows Kyle into his room and lies down next to him. 

Sometime early, long before the sun, Kyle wakes in the dark, and listens to the sound of him breathing. Kyle is not alone. And whatever else he is, he is cared for. Kyle goes back to sleep. 

 

 

Sometimes, Kyle feels so many things they’re hard to pick through, all of them feel equally important and are thus confusing. But even that experience of being overwhelmed teaches something. And his emotions do, eventually, come into better balance. The processes are refined. Pruned and re-routed to produce something useful. Even if he’ll never be what he once was, he is functional. So, Kyle wakes up, and is by turns irritated by the unreliability of the coffee pot, amused by his coworkers, excited to watch Nick’s games, and sad that he isn’t playing. His days are spent feeling out these new rhythms, trying to establish a new normal. 

His nights are spent next to Nick. 

Because every night Nick foregoes the wide expanse of his own bed, and instead crawls in with Kyle in Kyle’s room. He doesn’t say anything about his actions. He doesn’t touch Kyle, just sleeps wordlessly next to him. Soft and warm, and within arm’s reach. 

Why he does this is unclear. He started when Kyle was sad, so achingly sad he could hardly move, much less think. But that stage has passed. And yet Nick remains in his bed. Kyle wonders if Nick, who is sometimes not the most perceptive, has missed this emotional evolution. But just the other day, Nick said, “I’m glad you’re smiling more.” So he must see. He must know. 

Nick radiates heat. And he took a puck up high two games ago, so he’s snoring lightly. Soft, shuffling inhales made through his mouth. 

Kyle watches the steady rise and fall of his chest. Nick’s thrown the covers back and he’s wearing a threadbare t-shirt. Knowing Nick, he’s probably had it for years, since high school, if not longer. Without meaning to, Kyle thinks about the times he slid his hands under Nick’s clothing. He thinks about the smooth heat of his skin, and Nick’s broad hands urging him closer. The way he touched Kyle and the way Kyle had wanted so badly to be touched. Back then, he and Nick had kissed – just kissed – for so long that the need for more had become a heady, drumbeat ache in his blood. A constant distraction, but one he was afraid to act on, until he had finally worked up the nerve to talk to Leddy. 

“Look,” Kyle had said. “I just need to know if I’m – you know. Normal.” 

It was one of those lazy, post-practice afternoons, and Leddy was stretched out on his bed, tossing a baseball up into the air and catching it while Kyle perched on the desk chair. Leddy didn’t even glance at him. “You know you’re unaltered bioware from head to toe. Nobody can tell from looking.” 

He’d reassured Kyle of this many times, ever since Kyle was first allowed out of the house and out in public. But this was different. “No. Like – the inside. And other stuff.” 

Leddy frowned. He caught the ball and held it. “Like, your organs?” 

“No. Come on, Leds. You know what I’m talking about.” 

Leddy sat up and looked at him. “I really, really don’t.” 

Kyle could feel heat creeping into his face. “Like, like – if I have sex with Nick, is it going to feel normal for him, or will he be able to tell?” Kyle was bright red, but there was no sense in stopping now. “Like, is my come normal?” 

“Wow. Okay.” Leddy took a breath. “This is – okay, this is honestly not a conversation I ever anticipated having.” He set the ball aside. Took another breath. “Are you and Nick having sex?” 

Kyle shrugged. “No. But he wants to, and – ” 

Leddy broke in. “It’s your body and no one gets to pressure you into doing anything you don’t want – ” 

“He wants to and _I want to, too_ ,” Kyle finished. “Nick’s not pressuring me into anything.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “If I wanted a lecture about free will and autonomy I would have asked my mom.” 

Leddy hesitated, and Kyle knew exactly why. “Don’t say I can’t have this. Don’t.” 

Leddy’s made a face. “Have you told him?” 

“No,” Kyle said. “You know I can’t.” 

Leddy pursed his lips, and made the face of someone trying to break bad news gently. 

“You said I could have teammates.” Kyle ran over whatever Leddy was about to say. “That I should care about them. Well, if I can have teammates, I should be able to have friends. And If I can have friends, why can’t I have Nick? I like him, and _he likes me._ He doesn’t have to, or for any special reason. He just likes me.” Leddy’s expression was growing tighter with each word. Kyle pressed on. “If you say I can’t have this you might as well just lock me up in a room and only take me out for hockey games.” 

Leddy looked really uncomfortable at that. “He’ll be upset when he finds out.” 

Kyle’s throat went tight, embarrassingly, horrifyingly, right on the edge of tears. “Why does he have to find out? He’s leaving next year. You’re leaving next year – everyone’s leaving next year. So why can’t I have this? Just for a little bit?” 

“Hey, come on. You don’t need to – ” Leddy came over and rested a hand on Kyle’s back. “Okay,” he said, giving in. “Okay. You’re not fertile, but unless he’s putting your jizz under a microscope, he’s not going to notice anything different. Your GI tract is all normal. You should be fine for – whatever you want to do.” Leddy paused. His hand tightened for moment on Kyle’s shoulder. “Do you have condoms?” 

Kyle shook his head. 

Leddy walked over to his dresser. He pulled out those small plastic packets and handed them over. “I’m not really an expert on the gay stuff, but in general use lube and go slow.” He looked so serious looking down at Kyle. 

“I do have the internet,” Kyle reminded him. 

Leddy smiled. “Right.” He paused again. “Okay, also, look, I’m not saying this because of what you are – I’m saying this because you’re my friend and my rookie, and I love you, and I’d say it to anybody. But you don’t need to do anything just to prove something to somebody, okay? You don’t need to do anything you’re not comfortable with.” 

“I like him,” Kyle had said, still blushing. “I like him a lot.” 

He still likes Nick, he should probably admit that, to himself at least. In the dark stillness of the bedroom, he listens to Nick snore. He rolls to watch the fan blades turning slowly overhead. Nick brought him here. Nick is sleeping next to him. But Kyle still doesn’t understand why. Because Nick was also horrified by what Kyle is. So much so that after the night he found out, not only did he not want to touch Kyle, he didn’t want to see him, didn’t want to speak to him. For years. Kyle fidgets with the edge of the blanket. He doesn’t want that to happen again. Nick wants him here, but maybe he doesn’t want to think about what Kyle is? Or maybe Nick wants him here, but doesn’t want – all the things that Kyle is thinking about. 

Quickly, darkly, Kyle thinks what if Nick just wants him here to cook and clean up? Some sort free labor? Is Nick hoping that Kyle will one day be good at hockey again? Hockey was the first thing they had together. 

But there have to be easier ways to get cheap labor. And even hockey doesn’t make sense, because even if Kyle got good again, he wouldn’t be allowed to play. Which means Nick brought him here because he wants Kyle here. But what exactly does he want from Kyle? And if Kyle asks, will that be too much – make Nick think about all the things he doesn’t want to think about? 

What if that backfires, and Nick sends him away? 

Because Nick has a way of avoiding the things he doesn’t like. He’s a thousand miles away, down here in Florida, and he’s barely looked back since leaving. Kyle inches down further into the blankets. He doesn’t want to be sent away, he decides. He wants to be here, with Nick. And right now, Nick wants him here, like this. Maybe it’s better to let everything else go. 

 

 

But what he wants from Nick follows him into their daylight hours. Nick wants to follow Kyle’s progress. So Kyle shows him his brain, as mirrored on the computer upstairs. 

Nick’s eyes flick over the screen, and even though he doesn’t understand what all that means, he smiles at Kyle. He says, “what you did is amazing.” And he does it with such warmth that Kyle’s heart beats faster in his chest. 

“Nick – ” Kyle starts. 

Nick rests a hand on Kyle’s shoulder. 

All the words leave Kyle’s mind. He tries to find his voice, throat having gone dry. He wants to ask, _why am I down here in Florida with you? Do you still want me like you used to?_ But his courage fails him. He swallows. “Not really sure what to do next.” 

Nick squeezes his shoulder. “I think – if you can – you should change your goal from wanting to play hockey.” 

Kyle blinks in confusion, and Nick rushes to add, “Not that I don’t think you can play. I know you can. I just think it should be something broader, like – ” He stumbles. “Like, to be happy. Or to do your best at whatever you pick.” 

“But I think you should decide that. And I know you can do it,” Nick says. “Whatever you decide on.” He sounds so proud. 

Nick’s fingers are curled around Kyle’s shoulder. His thumb brushes lightly against the back of Kyle’s neck. Kyle is consumed by the worry he’s going to take his hand away. 

Downstairs, the doorbell rings. 

“That’ll be Barky,” Nick says. He pats Kyle’s shoulder, and leaves to answer the door. 

Kyle rests his head, just for a moment, against the desk. 

Sasha is nominally over to have dinner with both of them, and they do eat – informal, in front of the TV. But really he’s there because Kyle now has games before they’re available to the public. Even Nick knows that. He grins after they finish, getting up to clear the dishes. “I’ll leave you guys to it.” 

They spend so much time alone – just the two of them, that Kyle forgets Sasha is there. He watches Nick leave the room, and he gets that pang, that sharp ache in his chest, that always accompanies Nick leaving. 

Kyle looks away, but whatever is on his face, it’s making Sasha look at him with a gentle, awkward smile. Sasha clears his throat, very lightly. “I’d wondered, maybe, if – ” He gives a little half shrug, as if he doesn’t need to finish. 

Kyle studies the screen. The controller. Anything but Sasha’s face. “What made you think that?” 

Sasha shrugs again. “Well. He did move you into his house.” 

Kyle sighs. “We were,” he says. “We aren’t.” 

“Ah.” Sasha turns his attention to the game. “If it’s – he’s happier now that you’re here. I don’t know if that makes it better.” 

 

 

It doesn’t make anything better. It makes it worse. It makes the things Kyle is feeling a hot torture under his skin. And it’s impossible to sleep next to Nick that night, not knowing what he wants. 

Kyle waits for him, sitting on the edge of the bed, on the side where Nick usually sleeps. 

Nick walks into the room, and he hesitates, stands frozen in the doorway. And in the low light, Kyle sees him brace himself. 

“Why did you bring me down here?” Kyle asks. 

Nick nods, like he’s been expecting this question. But he doesn’t answer right away, and a dozen different emotions cross his face. “I left too many things broken in Minnesota,” he says. He doesn’t look at Kyle. “Leaving you – leaving you there felt like leaving a sword hanging over my head. I had to try to fix something.” When he looks up, there’s a gleam in his eyes. 

It’s Kyle’s turn to nod, because even he understands you don’t travel thousands of miles and never look back without a reason. And he was there; he was the one who held Nick when he needed to be held, the one who listened to all the things he could and couldn’t say. “Being here has been good, but – this is hard for me.” Kyle smoothes a hand across the comforter, and half gestures to the bed. And he means sleeping, and not sleeping, and everything that does and doesn’t happen in this small room. “It’s hard for me because I still want you. And I don’t know if you want me.” 

Nick’s expression is pained. He stands silent for another long moment, still hovering near the door. “I don’t know either,” he says. He swallows. “I should probably figure that out.” 

Kyle nods. 

“Goodnight, Kyle,” he says, before he goes. 

 

 

Nick is on the road for the whole of next week. 

Maybe that’s for the best. 

 

 

When Nick comes home, he shrugs off his jacket, all the layers that give evidence that he’s been in colder climes. When he goes to bed, he goes to his own room. 

 

 

Kyle wakes up in the dark, still part of the night, to the sound of the door, and the brief spill of light from the hall. 

The bed dips. 

Kyle can hear Nick breathing in the dark, and he can feel the flutter of his own heart in his chest. 

Nick’s face is shadowed, but his eyes are bright. “I thought I shouldn’t. The whole time I was gone, I thought about how we shouldn’t – but I can’t sleep when you’re right here. And I want you. I don’t know what that says about me. I don’t care. I want you.” He lays a careful hand along Kyle’s jaw. 

It feels like a very long time since Kyle has kissed him, but he is so very familiar. The way he curves over and around Kyle. The way his hands hold Kyle’s face. The easy way his legs part to let Kyle in close. 

“I remember this, god, I remember – ” Nick says it into Kyle’s throat, right up against his skin. 

Kyle’s too twisted in blankets, too hot, he’s already trying to get Nick’s shirt up and off, and that first press of Nick’s skin up against his makes everything in him stutter to a momentary stop. 

Nick’s hands grapple and slide against Kyle’s sides. Kyle reaches for him. Nick is whispering things up against his mouth and pressing hard against him. They move together, rough and inelegant. Slick and perfect. 

He remembers this, too. The way the sounds catch in Nick’s throat, and the way Kyle’s heart thuds and races in his chest. 

After, everything feels like almost too much. Nick’s fingers dragging across his skin leave buzzing, humming trails on his skin. He feels tender, and raw, as though something important in him has been cut open and exposed to the air. It’s a heady, shaky feeling that reminds him of the very first time they did this. The first time Nick touched him like this – which was the very first time anyone had touched him like this. And it had all been so overwhelming, everything moving over and through him like a wave pulling him along. He had understood Leddy’s warnings then. 

But it had been okay, it had been wonderful, because Nick was so careful with him. Even now, they fit so close and so perfect. Nick’s hands are on his face, pushing back his hair. A soft, steady touch that makes Kyle feel grounded in himself, in his body. He opens his eyes to look at Nick. He smiles. “Thank you,” Kyle says. “For being so gentle with me, when I was new.” 

Nick’s hands tighten momentarily. And while Kyle watches, Nick starts to cry. 

“Nicky,” he says. “I didn’t mean – Nick – ” 

Nick doesn’t stop crying. He’s speaking, but the words are jumbled and impossible to make out. While Kyle watches, Nick makes himself slow and take a breath. He cups Kyle’s face, and he says, “Kyle, I’m so sorry.” 

Kyle aches – confused and angry and sad and hurting – hurting for his past self and hurting for Nick in this moment, because he can’t watch Nick be sad and not ache with him. Kyle takes a breath. “You hurt me,” he says. 

Nick stops trying to talk and just cries harder. 

Kyle swallows, he leans in. “That wasn’t okay. I have feelings.” 

Nick nods, his forehead pressed to Kyle’s. “Yes.” 

“I’m not quite like you,” Kyle whispers. “But they still count.” 

Nick opens his eyes to look at him. His voice half-choked, he says, “You're special. You're extraordinary.” And he touches Kyle, lightly, carefully, like he’s something precious. “I’m sorry. I fucked up.” 

It hurts to smile. “Yeah.” Kyle has to blink back his own tears. “But I still love you. I forgive you.” 

Nick looks like something shattered. His shoulders shake, his eyes are red. But in the end, he looks like something made new. 

 

 

Kyle calls up, “Wake up, we’re having forgiveness eggs for breakfast.” 

When he makes his way downstairs, Nick wraps his arms around him from behind, as Kyle stands in front of the stove. He rests his chin on Kyle’s head, watching him work. “What makes them forgiveness eggs?” 

Nick’s voice is still gravelly with sleep. “Well, it’s really the toast I burned,” Kyle admits. “So actually maybe it’s – ” 

“Nothing is irrevocably broken breakfast?” Nick’s grip on him tightens. 

“Yeah,” Kyle says, soft. “That.” 

 

 

And one not too distant morning brings them this: 

The tinny voice from inside the phone says, “I don’t understand why you think Q2 is such an unreasonable request – ” 

“That’s because you don’t understand _anything_ ,” someone else snaps back. 

Kyle rubs his temples. Across the room, Nick raises an eyebrow. Kyle rolls his eyes. 

“You don’t – ” 

“How about this,” Kyle interrupts. “We go with the prioritization system I worked out, and if we hit deadline, we’ll use that going forward?” 

There is silence from the phone, and then, “Okay, we’re gonna follow Kyle’s lead on this one – ” 

Kyle executes a silent, and in his opinion, fairly restrained fist pump. He’s not what he used to be; but he’s beginning to believe he can be something else. 

When Nick walks past, he holds out his hand to bump knuckles, and they do matching exploding fists, because they might be nerds, but they’re a matched set. 

 

 

And on another morning, this one cool, with clouds resting thick and heavy across the sky, Kyle comes downstairs to find Nick on the phone. His fingers trace restless patterns across the countertops, and then he says, “Hey. Dad. Yeah, I know it’s been awhile. I was just – calling to see how you’re doing.” 

 

 

These are the pieces of a life being mended, and in the process of looking forward. No one said it would be easy. The bad things hurt. The hard things leave scars. Maybe neither of them will ever be exactly what they were, but there’s still clear ground, and the possibility for new growth. 

Their history marks them, just like it does everyone else. But when Nick folds, Kyle is there to keep him upright. When Kyle bends, Nick is there to prevent the break. And as the reward for all those slings and arrows, there is happiness. There is joy. 

``

>   
>  `You are the version of you that pushed through the ashes. There are so many ways to tell a story, but this is your story of how you came to be. This is the story of how you made yourself. It’s important to tell yourself the story of your own creation, because as you name it, it comes into being. It wasn’t always pretty, but you got here. You can look back on yourself, and you can look forward. You can tell that past self that you did the most important thing – you survived. And you can call out to that vague, hopeful shape of you in the future, and say: `  
>    
>  `Love and be loved. Forgive when you can. Teach your heart to grow.`  
> 

* * *

 

**Author's Note:**

> Plot synopsis: Nick, while struggling with his parents' divorce, begins dating Kyle in high school. He finds out Kyle is an android and dumps him. The rest of the story deals with the emotional fallout of that. They do find their own version of a happy ending :) 
> 
> Also, there are some parallels drawn in this story between Kyle's character and how some neuro atypical people experience the world. There's not enough room in this comment box to unpack all the things I want to say about that, but I do want to say that in no way is it a statement that neuro atypical people are not human or robotic. It's supposed to be a story about the things that unite us. Sappy as it is, it's supposed to be a story about love and compassion.


End file.
